Cheney has watched Frost/Nixon one too many times already

But unlike Frost and Nixon, Dick Cheney is showing that he can surpass Richard Nixon these days with all the "confessions" and logical fallicies and obfuscation to justify his actions and assertions that at no time is the President accountable to anyone, and he does it blithely and nonchalantly and with such hubris - it's like watching a crumudgeoned serial killer's dance during an interrogation with cops, the same sociopathic pyschosexual gratification when the killer believes and tells you that you will never catch them.

The cops can posture and sputter and question, and for the serial killer they can admit gleefully yes, all the while not believing that they can be touched - and scariest of all is that sometimes they're right.

[On Monday of this past week, Cheney admitted to Jake Tapper of ABC that he was instrumental and authorized torture]

God help us all that this shadow of a man should not live much longer but hurry to fade and to become the distant nightmare that he is destined and willing to become - a ghost story used to scare children at halloween.

The latest from Fox News Sunday is so telling, it's like looking at an alternate universe, except sadly it's not, from this week's creature feature:

WALLACE: If you could conceptualize it for me, sir, what do you think are the powers of the president relative to Congress and relative to the courts during war?

CHENEY: Well, I think in wartime, when you consider his responsibilities as commander in chief, clearly that means command of the armed forces.
It also, when you get into use of forces in wartime, means collecting intelligence. And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a terror surveillance program to be able to intercept the communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside the United States.
I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees. Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the president was fully authorized in taking and provided invaluable intelligence which has been the key to our ability to defeat Al Qaida over these last seven years.

WALLACE: This is at the core of the controversies that I want to get to with you in a moment. If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?

CHENEY: General proposition, I'd say yes. You need to be more specific than that. I mean — but clearly, when you take the oath of office on January 20th of 2001, as we did, you take the oath to support and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
There's no question about what your responsibilities are in that regard. And again, I think that there are bound to be debates and arguments from time to time, and wrestling back and forth, about what kind of authority is appropriate in any specific circumstance.
But I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what the Constitution provides for.
The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.
He could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in.

WALLACE: So what...

CHENEY: It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have.
And go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again. Now we've had a lot of time pass over it, so we've had, I think, people more complacent, perhaps, than was true some time ago.
We've also had a lot of our critics who want to score political points made what I think are outrageous charges. But in my mind...

WALLACE: So what rights do the Congress — what constitutional rights do the Congress and the courts have to limit the power of the president when it comes to these matters of national security?

CHENEY: Well, the Congress has — clearly has the ability to write statutes and has certain constitutional authorities granted in the Constitution.
But I would argue that they do not have the right by statute to alter a presidential constitutional power. In other words, you can't override his constitutional authorities and responsibilities.

WALLACE: So if they want to say he can't surveille or he can't detain...

CHENEY: Well, they have, for example, said — passed the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act is still in force out there today. That requires him to grant certain notifications to the Congress and give them the authority to supersede those by vote, if they want to, when it comes to committing troops.
No president has ever signed off on the proposition that the War Powers Act is constitutional. I would argue that it is, in fact, a violation of the Constitution, that it's an infringement on the president's authority as the commander in chief.
It's never been resolved, but I think it's a very good example of a way in which Congress has tried to limit presidents' authority and, frankly, can't.

And it goes from there. January 20, 2009 can't get here quickly enough.

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Playboy Mexico: Te Adoramos Maria Florencia Onori

The Mexican licensee has caused a furor in Mexico when the Magazine was published December 1st on the lead up to the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Holy day that is the largest Catholic Festival and cause of pilgrimage even with even greater numbers than the Hajj.


According to the Fox News the Corporate Headquarters in Chicago of Playboy Inc., was unaware of the cover because Playboy Mexico is a licensee of the parent company. According to The Sun, the magazine was intentionally planned to be released to coincide with the Feast Day, the Reuters News Wire made no claim and didn't support it. Either way it's offensive, has caused offense and Playboy is right to have apologized.

Mexico, like many European nations is a hotbed of anti-clericalism and the secularism bred in both locations is more antagonistic to religions than its American counterpart.

The model on the cover is Maria Florencia Onori, so far no statement has been released by her or the agency which represents her for her part in the scandal.

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Ale Mary, Full of Taste

A Blessing for Beer:

Bene dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen

-translated-

Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

It's Sunday which means most folks have gone to Church and unless you're of the high church variety that usually means a faith prohibitive of strong drink or any alcoholic beverage at all. But if you do partake of brew or wine or strong drink then a quick read of this week's New Yorker Magazine should be right up your ally.

As much as American Protestantism has an extreme position on beer and wine the New Yorker examines the concept of "Extreme Beer" with the rise of craft breweries, a reclamation of an American Tradition away from or as an alternative to the standard bearers of commercialized beer.

Beer has lagged well behind wine and organic produce in the ongoing reinvention of American cuisine. Yet the change over the past twenty years has been startling. In 1965, the United States had a single craft brewery: Anchor Brewing, in San Francisco. Today, there are nearly fifteen hundred. In liquor stores and upscale supermarkets, pumpkin ales and chocolate stouts compete for cooler space with wit beers, weiss beers, and imperial Pilsners. The King of Beers, once served in splendid isolation at many bars, is now surrounded by motley bottles with ridiculous names, like jesters at a Renaissance fair: SkullSplitter, Old Leghumper, Slam Dunkel, Troll Porter, Moose Drool, Power Tool, He’brew, and Ale Mary Full of Taste...

“We are trying to explore the outer edges of what beer can be,” Calagione says. But the idea makes even some craft brewers nervous. “I find the term ‘extreme beer’ irredeemably pejorative,” Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, told me recently. “When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve had in your life—are you man enough to drink it?,’ it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had—are you man enough to eat it?’ ”...

Others find it thrilling. “When you’re trying to create new brewing techniques and beer styles, you have to have a certain recklessness,” Jim Koch, whose Boston Beer Company brews Samuel Adams, and who coined the term “extreme beer,” told me. “Sam has that. He’s fearless, but he’s also got a good palate. He doesn’t put stuff into beer that doesn’t deserve to be there.”

And much like theological disputes and questions of orthodoxy so to have certain corners of the brewing world called into question the "natures" of such extreme beers and asked When does beer cease to be beer? Whether you stick to the German Purity laws of 1516 or are a fan of experimenting with the different contents or possibilities there is a lot to be said about these "small businesses" and the way in which they're challenging our assumptions about beer and revolutionizing the concept of beer and taste. If you want to read about one brewers journey in craft beer and commercialization read the rest of the New Yorker article, it's worth it.

If you want to try some for yourself, there are several bars in the Columbia area that serve craft beers - including the Flying Saucer, and The Whig, but even more special is Columbia has its own craft brewery - pub... The Hunter Gatherer. (that's google maps, they don't have a website). Or for more on craft brewing in South Carolina - check out Untamed Beer, a blog written by Brian Cendrokowski who is himself a brewer in the upstate. Or better yet, check out the World Beer Festival to be held in Columbia on January 24, 2009.

And for those who like to co-mingle their theology and brewing, check out Columbia YACS and their blog Imbibing the Spirit where you don't have to be afraid of mixing drinking and religion. After all, as A.E. Housman once so famously penned "Malt does more than Milton can / To justify God’s ways to man."

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From the mouth of bigots

It's not Nazism that should scare us as much as Francoism. The differentiating point between the two, Christianism. I wonder how this woman feels about Catholics.... and Jews.... and others who don't adhere to her strict theocratic prescriptions. I wonder if she even knows her own theological tenets or if she's Christ haunted as opposed to Christ centered. Her remarks reveal as much.

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Archbishop Raymond Burke just messed himself over this one

Catholics for Obama were the first folks state side to pick up the story. An African Archbishop said if he were an American he would vote for Barack Obama. His statements came as he attended and lectured at the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

Sully directs us to NCRcafe who first reported and Rocco who fleshes it out in analysis and context (worth the read). The money quotes as sully points out,

“Of course I believe that abortion is wrong, that it’s killing innocent life,” he said. “I also believe, however, that those who are against abortion should be consistent.

“If my choice is between a person who makes room for abortion, but who is really pro-life in terms of justice in the world, peace in the world, I will prefer him to somebody who doesn’t support abortion but who is driving millions of people in the world to death,” Onaiyekan said.

“It’s a whole package, and you never get a politician who will please you in everything,” he said. “You always have to pick and choose.”

I could never put it any clearer to my brothers and sisters in the faith.

Of course the usual suspects on the right have already been quick to dismiss the Archbishop as a communist in the comboxs while their leaders remain silent on the issue though Archbishop Burke, formerly of St. Louis and as the title suggests, may be upset with the African Prelate for undermining his best efforts to equate the democratic party (candidate) with death (evil).

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Anglican Bishops just got 'served', part II

The Anglican Bishops in synod at Lambeth got blasted again, this time from an unlikely source, one of their stronger allies - the Prefect of the Congregation for Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper.

Ruth Gledhill is reporting the Cardinal as saying of the Anglican/Catholic dialog towards corporate unity is at an end because of ordination of women to the presbyterate and episcopate.

"Although our dialogue has led to a significant agreement on the idea of priesthood, the ordination of women to the episcopate blocks substantially and finally a possible recognition of Anglican orders by the Catholic Church. We hope for the continuation of a theological dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church, but the latter development directly undermines our goal and alters the level of what we pursue in dialogue."

Sandro Magister offers some additional insights as Kasper is viewed as not in favour of opening the doors wide to disaffected Anglo-Catholics as well as the full text of his address to the bishops.

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390th Anniversary

This year is the 390th anniversary of the Second Defenestration of Prague, which led to the start of the thirty years' war. From Wikipedia,

The [Hapsburg] king-elect then sent two Catholic councilors (Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice) as his representatives to Hradčany castle in Prague in May 1618. Ferdinand had wanted them to administer the government in his absence. According to legend, the Bohemian Hussites suddenly seized them, subjected them to a mock trial, and threw them out of the palace window, which was some 50 feet off the ground. Remarkably, they survived unharmed. The Catholic version of the story claims that angels appeared and carried them to safety, while the Protestant version says that they landed in a pile of manure, which saved their lives.

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Anglo Catholics and the Path to Rome

With the Church of England approving a measure to ordain women Bishops, many are speculating what the fate of many Anglo-Catholics within the communion will be.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, himself a former Anglican Clergyman and current pastor in the Diocese of Charleston, is a good resource of practical information on the even more practical implications of said move by the C of E.

Check it out!

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The brick wall on the Third Way

Well, the Church of England, Great Britain's state established church has done it! They've approved of the ordination of Female Bishops, a move only preceded by the Church's American and Australian offshoots.

The Times are reporting that the vote was approximately two to one in favour of ordaining women to the episcopate, but contends that none of the amendments previously discussed by Church leaders to foster havens for traditionalists were passed indicating including "Super Bishops" akin to the churches flying bishops, not to be confused with the flying nun.

The decision led to members warning of the prospect of traditionalists seeking supervision from conservative archbishops in overseas provinces, as conservatives have in the US, after the dispute over gay ordination.

Catholic and evangelical bishops are also understood to have held secret talks in Rome to discuss how to proceed with unity talks once women are ordained, and what, if any, kind of recognition might be granted to Anglo-Catholics by Rome.

This happened in the 70's when the ECUSA, now headed by a woman, ordained the first women priests, many conservative clergy and congregants (though by no means a huge number) swam the Tiber, joining the Roman Catholic Church. A group of commutative Anglo-Catholics known as the TAC have made public their beseechings to the Holy See already.

Ruth Gledhill said in her blog that " If motion failed or was close, would be a sign that no clear unifying ecclesiology existed in the CofE." [sic]

I contend that the vote in favour of the measure has in fact rendered the existence of a unifying ecclesiology, if any ecclesiology, non-existent. The next step for the original "Church of England" is to become as riddled and mired in heterodoxy, schism and increasing irrelevance much as the North American Churches she founded some centuries ago presently are.

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Let's Declare our Independence

image from the History Channel
July the 4th approaches. Today July 2, the Lee Resolution was voted on and adopted by the Second Continental Congress which officially and finally severed our ties from Great Britain, and we declared our Independence. As individuals and families around our community, state, and country gather to ponder the events of this July American Triduum, commemorating events more than 200 years ago it befalls upon us - especially we South Carolinians - to turn once again to that hallowed document and the charges it sets out for us, descendants of those worthies and realize that

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

We must, as our fore bearers, be embolden to throw off the yoke of bad governance. For too long we've suffered under a form of Government that has forgotten it's obligations to our safety and happiness, has ensconced itself in it's own self preservation and promotion as opposed to the preservation and promotion of the individual and corporate welfare of the people.

But how do we do this, how do we individually stand up for ourselves when we are complacent in our own chains of servitude to a broken system that doesn't advance the name of South Carolina, but holds it back in the throws of demagoguery and dereliction, where we reside in a sea of confusion.

The current constitution provides remedy for itself by allowing for a more peaceable way to rectify our mistakes, it calls for a constitutional convention.

Whenever two-thirds of the members elected to each branch of the General Assembly shall think it necessary to call a Convention to revise, amend or change this Constitution, they shall recommend to the electors to vote for or against a Convention at the next election for Representatives; and if a majority of all the electors voting at said election shall have voted for a Convention, the General Assembly shall, at its next session, provide by law for calling the same; and such Convention shall consist of a number of members equal to that of the most numerous branch of the General Assembly.

So how to get the attention of the elected officials in the general assembly and force their hand? To attempt individually would most likely met out only failure. Let us once again remember the efforts of those who went before us and take their example by offering up ourselves together in a way that is equally as honourable and tangible -- signing our names. Please take the time to consider and sign the following petition. Remember what Ben Franklin said "...we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

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Bill Kristol's STD

I had no idea that Mr. William Kristol had an STD (Sacrae Theologiae Doctor) until I read his op-ed piece in the NY Times about the McCain campaign. In reference to Mr. Obama:

In his evocation of healing powers and dominion over the waters, Obama summons up echoes of the Gospels and Genesis. His comment a week earlier at Wesleyan, that "our individual salvation depends on collective salvation," I might add, would seem at odds with much of Christian teaching.

I find it rather amusing (ironic even?) that a neoconservative should suppose anything about personal let alone corportate salvation since their philosophy and doctrine seems to contradict such notions at every turn.

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Pirate attacks increase!

Sully points out that Pirate Attacks are up 75%! This is great news for those concerned with the Carbon Footprints as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (i.e. pastafarians) has concluded an inverse relationship between number of Pirates and Global Temperature.

Already the people over at CFSM are pointing to the nation of Somalia who has the lowest Carbon Footprint and highest number of Pirates.

In other news related to the Pastafarian Cult, Snead looks forward to the day of having an FSM license plate since South Carolina approved the "I Believe" plate for Christians - and even includes a video from NBC Nightly News on the "I Believe" tag with B-roll of St. Peter's Parish (my home Parish) and a roll call vote of the SC House, with Rep. Ted Vick from Cheraw's name being called out. Just watch!


To continue with the Spaghetti Monster - what an interesting bit of satire, just do a google search, and see all the news - like a statue to the monster that is outside of a courthouse in TN next to Jesus and the Statue of Liberty, and then look at this rendition of an ancient Chinese/Japanese text similar to the Kama Sutra with the FSM...

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I wonder what the Penance would be

I've heard of Murder in the Cathedral.....

.... but not sex.

I read this article on CNN this morning about a couple caught in flagrante delicto:

A man and a woman have been charged by police in Italy after they were found having sex in a confession box, it was reported Wednesday.

The Italian ANSA news agency said the young man and woman were taken into custody by police in the northern city of Cesena following a telephone complaint from a man attending morning Mass in the city's cathedral.

Authorities were alerted after a parishoner heard "rustling and groaning" coming from inside the confession box and pulled back the curtains to reveal a goth-rock couple engaged in oral sex, ANSA said.

The agency said the pair -- a 31-year-old laborer and a 32-year-old teacher -- defended their conduct saying: "We are atheists and for us, having sex in church is like doing it any other place." However, Bishop Antonio Lanfranchi of Cesena-Sarsina took said the couple's behavior was "an outrage of notable proportions which bespeaks unutterable squalor."

For some reason this reminded me of something I saw at Andrew Sullivan's blog a couple of weeks ago, from Drexel University. A faculty member has researched medieval punishments for coital sins.

The distinguished faculty members research has discovered the penance for all varieties of sexual acts including:

Dorsal sex (woman on top): three years Lateral, seated, standing: 40 daysCoitus retro — rear entry: 40 daysMutual masturbation: 30 daysInter-femural sex — ejaculation between the legs: 40 daysCoitus in terga — anal sex: three years (with an adult); two years (with a boy); seven years (habitual); 10 years (with a cleric).

I wasn't able to locate any specific penance for having sex in a cathedral though. Perhaps being atheists they'll consider Baptism and forgo the whole Punishment.

The rector added that a special ceremony would be held to purify the confession box, which I'm sure will involve a lot of soap.

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Iran to Jesus

So what does the Son of Man have to do with this crazy man?

Well according to news reports President Ahmadinijad can not wait for the return of Jesus Christ to the world to usher in an era of peace.

It's more complex than that though, because even though for Islam there is a "Second Coming" of Jesus in the world and he will bring justice and peace, the notions of who Jesus is is completely different than in mainstream Christianity.

"With the appearance of the promised saviour... and his companions such as Jesus Christ, tyranny will be soon be eradicated in the world."

Also it should be noted that the Mahmoud is a Shi'ite and a "12ver" at that, which means his notions and beliefs - even about Jesus are nuanced if not completely different than Sunni Muslims and therefore heretical.

All in all though, Mahmoud's continued prognostications are cooky and vile, especially those towards Israel even though the "battle desired" and "end results" sound incredibly familiar to someone on our side of the world and who is constantly touted as a great American Pastor.

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A second Obama Apostate Article appears

H/T to Gashwin for forwarding me this article.

It appears that a second attempt to manipulate Islamophobia in the Presidential Race has appeared. Shireen K. Burki is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va and who has extensive ties with the Marine Corps as a consultant is the author of the latest bit.

It's found in the Christian Science Monitor, and much like Edward Luttwak's piece from the NYTimes, attempts to connect Obamas seeming cultural-hereditary ties witht he Umma with reasons why he'll be the target State Sponsored Assassination attempts in the worst case scenarios and an impediment to foreign relations with the Middle East and the entirety of Dar al Islam in all other cases. But Ms. Burki takes her argument a step further. She insists that terrorist organizations (Al Qaeda) will also see President Obama as a worthy target as an Apostate to the religion and as leader of the Great Satan - especially if he takes a "hard line" in regards to the Middle East (further warmongering).

Ms. Burki argues:

According to Islamic jurisprudence, children of a Muslim father – even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama's father, and irrespective of the mother's faith – are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period. Should Obama become US commander in chief, there is a strong likelihood that Al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab, will exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror (read: attacks against fellow Muslims). This perception would be leveraged to galvanize sympathizers into action.

But why would everyday Muslims galvanize around this call - well her response is very similar to Bittergate.

"Al Qaeda, though, has struggled recently to recruit volunteers for this jihad. While bin Laden retains significant support as someone willing to stand up for Muslim concerns, most Muslims abhor Al Qaeda's terrorist methods whose primary targets are innocent noncombatants.

But an apostate as head of the United States could change this equation. It would be a propaganda boost for Al Qaeda's mission. All one has to do is read Al Qaeda's public statements to recognize how frequently it makes baseless apostasy accusations against fellow Muslims who challenge its message or actions. ...

Conservative Muslim populations that are riddled with poverty and low literacy rates can be more readily swayed to join the cause against the "Great Satan" (the US) if their imams and mullahs shout that it is led by an apostate."

So Mr. Obama should he be President and who according to John McCain is Hezzbolah's candidate (Shia Islam) is now the favoured Candidate of Al-Qaeda (Sunni Islam) an organization that is theologically as well as politically opposed to Hezzbolah, Iran, and Shia Islam (heresy!) in general.

To respond to these charges by two well respected individuals who draw paychecks from Conservative (Republican and NeoCon) institutions and the (rather Hawkish) War Department, I refer my dear friends to an article in Huffington Post by Ali Eteraz. He has many strong arguments the basis of which goes back to the notion of simply being born to a Muslim Man = a Muslim is a fallacy:

Religion is not hereditary as it is in Judaism. Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father -- which, again, Obama didn't -- doesn't mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim. At the time of birth, Muslims engage in a symbolic act -- of saying the Call to Prayer in the child's ear -- that renders a child Muslim. If Obama's father was agnostic/atheist, then he wouldn't have done such a thing.
No call to prayer in the ear, not raised as a Muslim, born to an atheist father, and then abandoned to a Christian mother both by father and his family, equals not Muslim. Obama is right to say he had no religion until he became a Christian.
Those who actually study Muslims see that there are millions of inter-religious marriages -- between Muslim men and Hindu women for example -- in which the children are being raised as pantheists, or even, Hindu. When these children grow up, they aren't killed for being apostates (though some Muslims do thumb their noses at the father for "allowing" his children to be raised non-Muslim).

In a way it's fortunate to see that such a whisper campaign, no matter how contrived and nonsensical, being brought to the surface so that writers such as Mr. Eteraz and other more serious scholars without potential biases (such as who's paying them) may step forward and rectify these ludicrous accusations.

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British Government approves human-animal embryos

In a move that Sky news says is worthy of Dr. Frankenstein, Gordon Brown mustered a sizable majority coalition to overcome amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research by a majority of 160 votes as well as pure hybrid embryos (50/50) by a smaller margin of 63 according to the Times UK.

From Sky News:

Scientists will now be allowed to insert the nuclei of human cells into animal eggs, creating hybrid embryos which grow for up to 14 days. As a result, stem cells can be harvested and used to create brain, skin, heart and other tissue for treating diseases - before the embryos are destroyed.

These admixed embryos are called Chimeras after the mythical creature that Homer in his illiad described as "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire..." Such a name is appropriate to more than a few bioethicists and even me. Even more strange and bizarre than the bills passage is the notion that the leader of the conservative party - the Tories, David Cameron supported these measures of admixture. Even more peculiar is though this bill passed a measure to give lesbians the right to IVF did not is expected to fail, while a further restriction on abortion looks to pass. Bizarre to say the least!! I'm sure the is going to cause a huge fuss in religious and more socially conservative circles.

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Eucharist as Weapon

*pic from life teen
If there's anything that the past two election cycles have proven, it's that the Catholic tribe is a much sought after bloc of voters that is as complex a group as the generalization "white people" (as opposed to hard working, hard working white Americans).

A majority of Catholics have been, historically, aligned with the Democratic party since the 1940's and have proved pivotal in recent years as enough of the tribe was swayed to vote for George Bush in 2004. This gave him the Presidency for a second term over, ironically, his Catholic opponent - Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Navigating the electoral waters for Catholics has proven to be a process of great discernment, highlighted with points of even greater contention, as the Bishops have appealed to the electorate with a rhetoric of thoughtful engagement with all the issues, while many have then turned around to punish certain politicians by with holding communion for their public support for a single issue, Abortion rights. In 2004 it was Sen. Kerry being disavowed the bread and wine from the Archbishop of St. Louis (if he ever attended Mass in his archdiocese).

This year the matter is on the verge of exploding back to the for-front, especially in the wake of the Apostolic Visit of Benedict XVI, who has reinvigored the Bishops and given them the confidence of legitimacy they've not had since prior to the sex abuse crisis. It's also stirred a frenzy among the young conservative elites who, in the wake of the abuse crisis, have seized the reigns of lay leadership and involvement away from the older liberal generations who were disaffected from the church because of the crisis (for many this was the proverbial straw for the camel's back).

These young elites and their Bishops have become more brazen to participate in partisan politics, and in some cases the Bishops have ignored their own directives to the Catholic electorate not to focus on single issues. Such was the case of Kathleen Sebelius (D), the Catholic Governor of Kansas. It was recently reported in Commonweal online that "...with the Democratic governor’s political star rising, the registered Republican Archbishop of Kansas City revived the use of Holy Communion as a political weapon to take her down. He publicly called on her to stop taking Communion with her Catholic community, because of her widely-known opposition to the use of criminal law in dealing with abortion. In a Catholic newspaper column, Archbishop Joseph Naumann indicated that he had made the request because he had been angered by her vetoes of several Republican bills restricting abortion in Kansas. In her most recent veto message, Gov Sebelius offered a detailed description of the lengths to which she had gone to address the abortion issue constructively, and lauded the success her administration had achieved in decreasing its incidence."

But refusing communion to Democrat Politicians, as we've noted with Sen. Kerry and the Archbishop of St. Louis in 2004, while certainly becoming more partisan and brazen is not new. Public lashing of moderate Republicans, who are moderate on abortion rights issues, is. Recently Rudy Guliani (former contender for the Republican nomination for President), was publicly censured by Cardinal Egan of New York.

But it doesn't stop there! Now you don't even have to be a Politician moderate on, or in favour of, abortion rights to be barred from Communion.

Most recently Doug Kmeic, perhaps one of the country's most revered opponents to abortion, a constitutional lawyer who served under that paragon of conservatism, Ronald Regan, was even denied communion. From his own words at Catholic.org:

On the blogs, I have been declared “self-excommunicated,” and recently at a Mass before a dinner speech to Catholic business leaders, a very angry college chaplain excoriated my Obama-heresy from the pulpit at length and then denied my receipt of communion.

A slap in the face for a man who discerned with great diligence that which the Bishops asked him to do when it comes to exorcising his constitutional and moral right of voting. All because he supports a Democrat who, while by virtue of his own conscience has passed the test for acceptable and worthy of his vote, is ok with Abortion Rights.

Does anyone else find it absurd that a political party is being systematically anathematized by a virulent, vitriolic unsympathetic group of elites and their hierarchical collaborators? Is anyone else perturbed that the Bishops should be so beholden of such a group and to that group's ascetic interpretations of law, scripture, and tradition, that they would disregard their own directive to voters at the behoovement of such a class of young Theocons and Clericalists, using Eucharist as a weapon against someone well regarded as friend to their cause?

And why are we using the Eucharist as a weapon? It is the most supreme Irony that the Sacrament of Love, compassion, and forgiveness - should become a weapon of segregation, denigration and saddest of all, a mere prop in the ongoing supposed "culture war," a war that only exists in the ethos of a lost generation and perpetuated and embodied in their indoctrinated and anointed heirs who can't see beyond the notion of us-versus-them into the post-modern reality in which the world resides - that its not necessary to be either ideological victim or warrior, but rather consensus maker or to borrow one of the titles of the Pope - Pontifex, bridge builder.

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World Bishops ordered to deny Mormons Access to Records

H/T to AmP. CNS has an article about a letter published by the Vatican ordering Bishops to deny access to diocesan and parish records to Mormon Genealogical Societies. The fear being posthumous baptisms. From the article:

In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah. The order came in light of "grave reservations" expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation's letter said. "This dicastery is bringing this matter to the attention of the various conferences of bishops," the letter reads. "The congregation requests that the conference notifies each diocesan bishop in order to ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted in his territory, due to the confidentiality of the faithful and so as not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Posthumous Baptism or Baptism by proxy is a practice the Mormons have been using for over a century. It gets its justification from 1 Cor 15:29: Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? According to Wikipedia the practice was outlawed by the Church in the 4th century as an aberrant practice of certain heretical groups.

The letter was dated 10 days prior to the Papal Visit, although it's just now coming to light, even after two Mormon representatives joined the Pontiff for an interreligious prayer service. Fr. Massa the spokesperson for the USCCB acknowledged that this may pose an issue for interreligious dialogue.

"It certainly has that potential," he said. "But I would also say that the purpose of interreligious dialogue is not to only identify agreements, but also to understand our differences. As Catholics, we have to make very clear to them their practice of so-called rebaptism is unacceptable from the standpoint of Catholic truth."

Case in point is that neither church recognizes the others form of Baptism. If a Mormon becomes a Catholic they must be rebaptized and vice versa. The LDS church (Mormons) have a scandalous view of the God-head from traditional Christianity. From the CNS document:

When issuing its 2001 ruling, the Vatican said that even though the Mormon baptismal rite refers to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the church's beliefs about the identity of the three persons are so different from Catholic and mainline Christian belief that the rite cannot be regarded as a Christian baptism. Latter-day Saints regard Jesus and the Holy Spirit as children of the Father and the Heavenly Mother. They believe that baptism was instituted by the Father, not Christ, and that it goes back to Adam and Eve.

The 2001 ruling in question was the order not to recognize Mormon Baptisms. It does solidify the Church's position that Mormonism is a heretical cult. And because I like the word, it means I'm within my faculties to use it here - Joseph Smith is therefore a heresiarch. But we live in a post conciliar Catholic world and as such "Profound theological differences are not an excuse for avoiding dialogue, but a reason for pursuing dialogue," Father Massa said.

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The Wright kind of vetting for John Hagee

This is a very good article in the NY Times by columnist Frank Rich on why certain Republican Preachers don't get the 'vetting' of Jeremiah Wright. The most notorious of this cycle that is getting a pass being John Hagee. Here's the full text of the column.

The All-White Elephant in the Room

By FRANK RICH

BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.

Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.”

Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it.

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

Perhaps that’s why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” That would be the Sept. 13, 2001, televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy.) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers “agents of intolerance” and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006.

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick.

When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it?

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.

A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.”

An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era. No one knows this better than Mr. McCain, whose own adopted daughter of color was the subject of a vicious smear in his party’s South Carolina primary of 2000.

This year Mr. McCain has called for a respectful (i.e., non-race-baiting) campaign and has gone so far as to criticize (ineffectually) North Carolina’s Republican Party for running a Wright-demonizing ad in that state’s current primary. Mr. McCain has been posing (awkwardly) with black people in his tour of “forgotten” America. Speaking of Katrina in New Orleans, he promised that “never again” would a federal recovery effort be botched on so grand a scale.

This is all surely sincere, and a big improvement over Mitt Romney’s dreams of his father marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Up to a point. Here, too, there’s a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low. But at a time when the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obama’s, Mr. McCain’s New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of policy.

Mr. McCain took his party’s stingier line on Katrina aid and twice opposed an independent commission to investigate the failed government response. Asked on his tour what should happen to the Ninth Ward now, he called for “a conversation” about whether anyone should “rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is.” Whatever, whenever, never mind.

For all this primary season’s obsession with the single (and declining) demographic of white working-class men in Rust Belt states, America is changing rapidly across all racial, generational and ethnic lines. The Census Bureau announced last week that half the country’s population growth since 2000 is due to Hispanics, another group understandably alienated from the G.O.P.

Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if there’s any coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane Jeremiah, it’s that this nation’s perennially promised candid conversation on race has yet to begin.

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Hillary and her invisible Pastor

As commentary continues on the media obstacle to Obama's nomination, the Rev. Wright. Steven Brant at Huffington Post has an interesting piece on HRC's association with "The Family." It is a suggestive piece.

"You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." said Hillary Clinton, to reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on uesday the 25th This is an interesting choice of words, since -- while we mostly hear about her Methodist upbringing -- Hillary Clinton has chosen to associate herself with The Family (also known as the Fellowship), a very conservative, fundamentalist organization started by Abraham Vereide...
"...an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faithFrom that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a "family" that thrives to this dayIn public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of "biblical capitalism," military might, and American empire...

The Truth is many times more fantastic than fiction. After reading the piece one wonders if Mr. Brant is delving into Conspiracy Theory, but upon closer examination Mr. Brant has done noting more than reveal a series of inter-connected facts about the organization, no matter how implausible they seem. Perhaps the one contention of fact is the level of influence this group has over HRC. The author does draw connections between the groups goals, Hillary's participation with the group and some of her stances - but it's no smoking gun and the author admits that. It's worth a read and worth looking deeper into about this shadowy (heretical) Christian organization that centers on Military Might and Unbridled Capitalism as a way of bringing God's Dominion to the Earth.

Hat tip to Auntie Q for the link.

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