http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/world/europe/24milan.html?_r=0

Woman in Priestly Garb Sounds ‘a Great Echo’

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

MILAN — While other little girls in her hometown of Nissoria, Sicily, were dressing up and playing house, Maria Vittoria Longhitano would pretend to say Mass, dispensing cookies and chips to her toys for communion. Sometimes, she would even baptize her dolls.
As a child, she prayed to St. Rita — much venerated in Sicily — asking for her intervention to become a priest.
But the Roman Catholic Church has no place for women among its clerical ranks, as the Vatican stated forcefully over the summer when it decreed that the attempt to ordain female priests is to be considered one of the most serious crimes against church law.
Ms. Longhitano’s spiritual journey eventually led her to the Old Catholic Church, a denomination that split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century, mostly over the issue of papal infallibility. She studied theology at the University of Catania.
On May 22 — coincidentally, the feast day of St. Rita — Ms. Longhitano, 35, was ordained a priest in a ceremony in an Anglican church in Rome. She is now known as Mother Vittoria, and is preparing to lead a congregation in Sabbioneta, Lombardy (though last month she celebrated her first Mass in Sicily, where she was on vacation).
There are fewer than 300 practicing Old Catholics in Italy, according to Fritz-René Müller, the Switzerland-based bishop who ordained her. But for Italians unaccustomed to seeing women in priestly garb, Mother Vittoria’s ordination “had a great echo; it was a small earthquake,” he said.
It reverberated especially loudly against a backdrop of mounting dissatisfaction — even in this traditionally Roman Catholic country — with what many perceive as the Vatican’s inadequate response to the global pedophilia scandal sweeping the clergy. Widely covered by the Italian news media, her ordination seemed to present another instance of a changing society at odds with the Vatican and its worldview.
“It was a strong signal, a way of opening the way,” said Mother Vittoria. “Rome is the center of Christianity; I think I gave a sense of hope to sister Catholics.”
Perhaps, but her Roman Catholic sisters will have to bide their time.
In July, the Vatican made revisions to internal laws to include the attempted ordination of women among its “more grave delicts,” or offenses, making it comparable to heresy, apostasy and pedophilia. Since 2008, the ordination of women has carried the penalty of excommunication, both for the woman and the person trying to ordain her.
Equating ordination of women with a crime like pedophilia drew howls of outrage from many Catholics.
“Perhaps those who crafted the document are on to something,” two professors at Seattle University — Fran Ferder, a Franciscan nun and clinical psychologist, and John Heagle, a priest, psychotherapist and canon lawyer — wrote last month in The National Catholic Reporter. “The refusal to allow women into the inner sanctum of ecclesial power may well be related to clergy sexual abuse, and to the Vatican’s impotence in addressing this crime in a truly pastoral way. Is the attempted ordination of women a crime, or is the real crime the refusal to allow it?”
Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Washington-based Women’s Ordination Conference, argued that placing the ordination of female priests in the rank of “highest crime” suggested that the Vatican was on the defensive “because our movement is growing.” She said that about 100 women had become Roman Catholic priests since a group of seven women were ordained in 2002 in a ceremony on the Danube River in Austria — though they are clearly not recognized by the church.
At the time the document was issued, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, the chairman of the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, “Women offer unique insight, creative abilities and unstinting generosity at the very heart of the Catholic Church.”
But, he added, “the Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”
Mother Vittoria said that she was actually optimistic about the effects of the recent Vatican pronouncement, and that she believed that the ban on priests could ultimately open the road to having female deacons, who are also not currently allowed in the Roman Catholic Church. “The world is changing, and I see that there’s growing support for women,” she said.
Vatican observers were more doubtful. In fact, the closing of Vatican ranks to women may be leading more people to the open doors of the Old Catholic Church, Bishop Müller said.
“People are coming to us, I think because we are a free Catholic church, and are not dependent on the Vatican’s centralism,” he said. The Italian and Swiss churches are part of the Union of Utrecht, a federation of Old Catholic churches that are in full communion with the Anglican Church. The clergy can marry and have children.
That is not to say that the Old Catholic Church did not have its own growing pains about admitting women to the clergy. The first woman was ordained in Switzerland, for instance, in 2000 after “years of debate,” he said, and some Old Catholic dioceses — Poland, for one — still do not accept the ordination of women. “Polish women don’t want to, but maybe they will in a few years,” he said. Currently women make up about 10 percent of the clergy in Union of Utrecht in Switzerland and in Germany, he said.
Because Italy is predominantly Roman Catholic, it has also gone practically unnoticed that Italian women have taken on central roles in some Protestant faiths. Pastor Maria Bonafede is the moderator of the Waldensian Church; Alessandra Trotta was elected president of the Methodist Church in Italy last year, and Anna Maffei is the president of the Christian Evangelical Baptist Union of Italy.
Even Mother Vittoria has a predecessor in the Old Catholic Church — Mother Teodora Tosatti, who was ordained in 2006 in a ceremony in Bonn, Germany.
The document issued over the summer by the Vatican made it clear that excommunication was in store for anyone involved in the ordination of a woman.
“We were excommunicated in 2008, but we rejected it,” said Bridget Mary Meehan, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Womenpriests organization, who was ordained a priest in 2006 without Vatican consent. “What matters is that we follow our conscience.”

New Jersey Archbishop Urges Same-Sex Marriage Supporters To Refrain From Taking Communion

Over the weekend over 20,000 of us joined in sending a message that communion isn't a political weapon to be wielded against those who support marriage equality. Will you sign the petition and help us make it to 30,000? Dear Diane, The Archbishop of Newark just sent a pastoral letter, addressed to over 1 million Catholics in his archdiocese, demanding that Catholics who support marriage equality refrain from receiving Holy Communion. This is a step too far. It's one thing for the bishops to pursue an increasingly conservative political agenda. It's quite another to wield the Blessed Sacrament as a political weapon against anyone who disagrees. We need a huge public outcry to show Archbishop John Myers that his new position is unacceptable, or we risk other bishops joining him -- and millions of faithful Catholics being denied Holy Communion. Can you sign our emergency petition right now? Tell Archbishop Myers: Don't use communion as a political weapon. Thanks! -- Michael and the whole Faithful America team Source: "New Jersey Archbishop Urges Same-Sex Marriage Supporters To Refrain From Taking Communion," ThinkProgress, September 26, 2012http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/09/26/915071/new-jersey-archbishop-communion/

Former Irish President speaks out on gay sexuality

 McAleese uses establishment voice to speak out on gay sexuality

By Terry Prone

Monday, October 01, 2012

http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2012/1001/opinion/mcaleese-uses-establishment-voice-to-speak-out-on-gay-sexuality-209337.html

 

Comment:  Here is an Irish leader, woman, and one who is definately intouch with her feminie divine.  She sees beyond the narrow strokes the hierarchy paints to people and describes well the pain youth feel, hide and try to live with.  How interesting the Irish culture recognizes sexual identity is pinned on youth by their own.... I have seen it time and again in all my years of teaching.  We are obligated  as Christians and Catholics to help the hierarchy catch up with culture. The question is-how do we do this?

IF Mary McAleese wanted to reach teenagers rendered miserable every day by knowing that they’re gay, she picked the wrong programme when she appeared on The Pat Kenny Show to talk about the topic.

Kids in their teens are rarely in a position to listen to that show, even when they’re not on their phones, their iPods, or music programmes. It is fair to assume, then, that her chosen audience wasn’t young gay men and women, but their parents and grandparents, as well as the Catholic Church.

It was an arresting interview. She sounded more presidential than when she was actually president of Ireland. Central to her argument was the prevalence of suicide among young Irish men, a factor often attributed to the overuse of alcohol by young men.

Inevitably, alcohol plays a lethal role in many suicides, particularly of men in their 20s. However, what Mary McAleese was hammering home is that we have a cohort of still younger men dying, and that one of the hidden reasons is their sexuality.

When broken down, the research makes it clear that young gay men are one of the most at-risk groups in the country.

That’s because they grow up in a context of condemnation, where references to being gay are freighted with negativity, if not contempt. The talk of cyber-bullying tends to ignore how teenagers, and indeed pre-teens, can spot, astonishingly early, the subliminal indications that one of their number is gay, and how speedily observation can turn to harassment and stereotyping using social media.

For a 13- or 14-year-old boy, this is horrific. But the youngster’s problems come not single file, but in battalions. For one thing, if they have been reared in a traditional Catholic home, they have heard references to homosexuality as something to be rejected, either because it is a disorder or an evil choice. Last week, Pope Benedict XVI told a meeting of bishops in Castel Gandolfo that homosexuality is "a faulty conception of human nature".

For another, young people pick up references in every gathering, like for example, when a gay man appears on TV and snide comments are made.

It is into that mangled context that the realisation of their own sexuality arrives — and Mrs McAleese made no bones about the nature of its arrival.

"When they make the discovery, and it is a discovery and not a decision," she said, "when they make the discovery that they are gay, when they are 14, 15, or 16, an internal conflict of absolutely appalling proportions opens up".

That internal conflict often, as she put it, drives young gay men into a place that is "dark and bleak".

Mrs McAleese was not being general about the problems facing young gay men. She was specifically stating her belief the Catholic Church is becoming increasingly isolated in its views of homosexuality.

She was stating that belief from a unique position, first of all as a woman who had delivered on her own bridge-building rhetoric, but much more importantly, as an overt and unashamed Church-going Catholic wife and mother.

The solid respectability of who she has been and what she has done for the past 14 years allowed her not just to make key points, but to make sure those points were heard past the static that would have been created had she been anybody else — that static best summed up in the phrase: "Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?"

Many a middle-aged mother, listening to her, will have wondered about the sexuality of her own son, and perhaps also considered how hard her loving family might be on that son, were he to discover he was gay. Even that concept — discovery rather than choice — would not have been as easily accepted from many speakers other than Mrs McAleese.

She did a great service to families, to the humanity of the Church, and to the teenage boys who won’t have heard her on the programme. And she was rigorous in her line-drawing. When Pat Kenny put to her that the orthodox Catholic position was "love the sinner, hate the sin", she brushed it aside, making a previously respectable device seem suddenly spurious.

Girls of the same age going through the same process of self-discovery did not figure, as is understandable given the framework of suicide within which the issue was being addressed. Not widening the interview to take in lesbian teenagers kept the narrative simple.

Which did not prevent one reader of this column extrapolating from what was said and applying it to herself. In her 20s, working in the manufacturing industry, this individual has yet to tell her parents or her sibling that she is gay, and doubts that she will ever get the courage to do so.

However, she wrote, hearing what Mrs McAleese had to say on the topic gave her new hope. "Although she was talking about young men, she described the internal conflict that goes on inside the head of anyone who ‘discovers’ they have an attraction to the same sex.

"It is head-wrecking stuff. We are brought up in Catholic families. We go to Catholic schools. We get our sense of right and wrong from those places and then we discover, in our fragile, formative teenage years, that something inside us doesn’t fit or match what’s supposed to be normal.

"And it is a terrifying discovery. It is not funny. It is not a ‘get over it’ issue like having thick ankles. The impulse to conform is powerful. No one wants to be the freak.

"Few teenagers are equipped with the mental strength to resist the need for the safety of the closet.

"But the self-denial, self-loathing, confusion, fear and suppression of authentic expression that accompanies the impulse to conform is destructive and inimical to living a fulfilled or happy life. If a person can’t be sure of their own identity, how can they be sure or confident about anything?

AND just because it is no longer illegal doesn’t mean modern Ireland is a "gay-friendly" place, so get over yourself; the world has moved on. No, it hasn’t. Prejudice and hatred is everywhere alive and kicking. I witness some form of homophobia almost every day.

"Anyway, I thought Mary McAleese was courageous and brave to publicly address the issue. I mean what’s it to her? What’s in it for her? She’s a happily married woman. Why should she care? And yet she does.

"I knew from her comments not only had she thought deeply about the plight of young gay men but she empathised with them. I also believe her concern is not human in source but comes from a transcendent, loving, supreme being.

"Her compassion springs from her Christian faith. Mary McAleese prays. She communes with God. I believe she has become a channel of God’s grace and that God is seething with the Catholic Church for the pain it has inflicted on generations of people over the centuries.

"One last thought about McAleese. I get driven more and more into denial when I see extremely camp figures championing the gay cause. They are more tolerated by the general public than respected. Mary McAleese, in contrast, is respected. She is mainstream establishment. People listen to her. She might make a difference."

She has before. She might again.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, October 01, 2012

Mary Patricia McAleese ( /mækəˈliːs/; née Leneghan; Irish: Máire Pádraigín Mhic Ghiolla Íosa;^[1] born 27 June 1951) served as the eighth President of Ireland from 1997 to 2011. She was the second female president and was first elected in 1997 succeeding Mary Robinson, making McAleese the world's first woman to succeed another as president.^[2] She was re-elected unopposed for a second term in office in 2004.^[3] McAleese is the first President of Ireland to have come from either Northern Ireland or Ulster.^[4]

Tough Talk for America

Tough Talk for America
A Guide to the Presidential Debates You Won’t Hear
By Mattea Kramer
Five big things will decide what this country looks like next year and in the 20 years to follow, but here’s a guarantee for you: you’re not going to hear about them in the upcoming presidential debates. Yes, there will be questions and answers focused on deficits, taxes, Medicare, the Pentagon, and education, to which you already more or less know the responses each candidate will offer. What you won’t get from either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama is a little genuine tough talk about the actual state of reality in these United States of ours. And yet, on those five subjects, a little reality would go a long way, while too little reality (as in the debates to come) is a surefire recipe for American decline.
So here’s a brief guide to what you won’t hear this Wednesday or in the other presidential and vice-presidential debates later in the month. Think of these as five hard truths that will determine the future of this country.

1. Immediate deficit reduction will wipe out any hope of economic recovery: These days, it’s fashionable for any candidate to talk about how quickly he’ll reduce the federal budget deficit, which will total around $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2012. And you’re going to hear talk about the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan and more like it on Wednesday. But the hard truth of the matter is that deep deficit reduction anytime soon will be a genuine disaster. Think of it this way: If you woke up tomorrow and learned that Washington had solved the deficit crisis and you’d lost your job, would you celebrate? Of course not. And yet, any move to immediately reduce the deficit does increase the likelihood that you will lose your job.
When the government cuts spending, it lays off workers and cancels orders for all sorts of goods and services that would generate income for companies in the private sector. Those companies, in turn, lay off workers, and the negative effects ripple through the economy. This isn’t atomic science. It’s pretty basic stuff, even if it’s evidently not suitable material for a presidential debate. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service predicted in a September report, for example, that any significant spending cuts in the near-term would contribute to an economic contraction. In other words, slashing deficits right now will send us ever deeper into the Great Recession from which, at best, we’ve scarcely emerged.
Champions of immediate deficit reduction are likely to point out that unsustainable deficits aren’t good for the economy. And that’s true -- in the long run. Washington must indeed plan for smaller deficits in the future. That will, however, be a lot easier to accomplish when the economy is healthier, since government spending declines when fewer people qualify for assistance, and tax revenues expand when the jobless go back to work. So it makes sense to fix the economy first. The necessity for near-term recovery spending paired with long-term deficit reduction gets drowned out when candidates pack punchy slogans into flashes of primetime TV.
2. Taxes are at their lowest point in more than half a century, preventing investment in and the maintenance of America’s most basic resources: Hard to believe? It’s nonetheless a fact. By now, it’s a tradition for candidates to compete on just how much further they’d lower taxes and whether they’ll lower them for everyone or just everyone but the richest of the rich. That’s a super debate to listen to, if you’re into fairy tales. It’s not as thrilling if you consider that Americans now enjoy the lightest tax burden in more than five decades, and it happens to come with a hefty price tag on an item labeled “the future.” There is no way the U.S. can maintain a world-class infrastructure -- we’re talking levees, highways, bridges, you name it -- and a public education system that used to be the envy of the world, plus many other key domestic priorities, on the taxes we’re now paying.
Anti-tax advocates insist that we should cut taxes even more to boost a flagging economy -- an argument that hits the news cycle nearly every hour and that will shape the coming TV “debate.” As the New York Times recently noted, however, tax cuts might have been effective in giving the economy a lift decades ago when tax rates were above 70%. (And no, that’s not a typo, that’s what your parents and grandparents paid without much grumbling.) With effective tax rates around 14% for Mitt Romney and many others, further cuts won’t hasten job creation, just the hollowing out of public investment in everything from infrastructure to education. Right now, the negative effects of tax increases on the most well-off would be small -- read: not a disaster for “job creators” -- and those higher rates would bring in desperately-needed revenue. Tax increases for middle-class Americans should arrive when the economy is stronger.
Right now, the situation is clear: we’re simply not paying enough to fund the basic ingredients of prosperity from highways and higher education to medical research and food safety. Without those funds, this country’s future won’t be pretty.
3. Neither the status quo nor a voucher system will protect Medicare (or any other kind of health care) in the long run: When it comes to Medicare, Mitt Romney has proposed a premium-support program that would allow seniors the option of buying private insurance. President Obama wants to keep Medicare more or less as it is for retirees. Meanwhile, the ceaseless rise in health-care costs is eating up the wages of regular Americans and the federal budget. Health care now accounts for a staggering 24% of all federal spending, up from 7% less than 40 years ago. Governor Romney’s plan would shift more of those costs onto retirees, according to David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard, while President Obama says the federal government will continue to pick up the tab. Neither of them addresses the underlying problem.
Here’s reality: Medicare could be significantly protected by cutting out waste. Our health system is riddled with unnecessary tests and procedures, as well as poorly coordinated care for complex health problems. This country spent $2.6 trillion on health care in 2010, and some estimates suggest that a staggering 30% of that is wasted. Right now, our health system rewards quantity, not quality, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of paying for each test and procedure, Medicare could pay for performance and give medical professionals a strong incentive to provide more efficient and coordinated care. President Obama’s health law actually pilot tests such an initiative. But that’s another taboo topic this election season, so he scarcely mentions it. Introducing such change into Medicare and the rest of our health system would save the federal government tens of billions of dollars annually. It would truly preserve Medicare for future generations, and it would improve the affordability of health coverage for everyone under 65 as well. Too bad it’s not even up for discussion.
4. The U.S. military is outrageously expensive and yet poorly tailored to the actual threats to U.S. national security: Candidates from both parties pledge to protect the Pentagon from cuts, or even, in the case of the Romney team, to increase the already staggering military budget. But in a country desperate for infrastructure, education, and other funding, funneling endless resources to the Pentagon actually weakens “national security.” Defense spending is already mind-numbingly large: if all U.S. military and security spending were its own country, it would have the 19th largest economy in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Switzerland. Whether you’re counting aircraft carriers, weapons systems, or total destructive power, it’s absurdly overmatched against the armed forces of the rest of the world, individually or in combination. A couple of years ago, then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates gave a speech in which he detailed that overmatch. A highlight: “The U.S. operates 11 large carriers, all nuclear powered. In terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship.” China recently acquired one carrier that won’t be fully functional for some time, if ever -- while many elected officials in this country would gladly build a twelfth.
But you’ll hear none of this in the presidential debates. Perhaps the candidates will mention that obsolete, ineffective, and wildly expensive weapons systems could be cut, but that’s a no-brainer. The problem is: it wouldn’t put a real dent in national defense spending. Currently almost one-fifth of every dollar spent by the federal government goes to the military. On average, Americans, when polled, say that they would like to see military funding cut by 18%.
Instead, most elected officials vow to pour limitless resources into more weapons systems of questionable efficacy, and of which the U.S. already owns more than the rest of the world combined. Count on one thing: military spending will not go down as long as the U.S. is building up a massive force in the Persian Gulf, sending Marines to Darwin, Australia, and special ops units to Africa and the Middle East, running drones out of the Seychelles Islands, and “pivoting” to Asia. If the U.S. global mission doesn’t downsize, neither will the Pentagon budget -- and that’s a hit on America’s future that no debate will take up this month.
5. The U.S. education system is what made this country prosperous in the twentieth century -- but no longer: Perhaps no issue is more urgent than this, yet for all the talk of teacher’s unions and testing, real education programs, ideas that will matter, are nonexistent this election season. During the last century, the best education system in the world allowed this country to grow briskly and lift standards of living. Now, from kindergarten to college, public education is chronically underfunded. Scarcely 2% of the federal budget goes to education, and dwindling public investment means students pay higher tuitions and fall ever deeper into debt. Total student debt surpassed $1 trillion this year and it’s growing by the month, with the average debt burden for a college graduate over $24,000. That will leave many of those graduates on a treadmill of loan repayment for most or all of their adult lives.
Renewed public investment in education -- from pre-kindergarten to university -- would pay handsome dividends for generations. But you aren’t going to hear either candidate or their vice-presidential running mates proposing the equivalent of a GI Bill for the rest of us or even significant new investment in education. And yet that’s a recipe for and a guarantee of American decline.
Ironically, those in Washington arguing for urgent deficit reduction claim that we’ve got to do it “for the kids,” that we must stop saddling our grandchildren with mountains of federal debt. But if your child turns 18 and finds her government running a balanced budget in an America that's hollowed out, an America where she has no chance of paying for a college education, will she celebrate? You don’t need an economist to answer that one.
Mattea Kramer is senior research analyst at National Priorities Project and a TomDispatch regular. She is lead author of the new book A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget.
Copyright 2012 Mattea Kramer

Stop National Rudeness-It takes a Canadian to see.

America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake!

http://www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/america-hes-your-president-for-goodness-sake

By William Thomas

There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a republican or democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country’s borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.

Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule.

Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.

Subsequently, during his State of the Union address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The president showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 or 40 times after that.

Last spring, President Obama took his wife Michelle to see a play in New York City and republicans attacked him over the cost of security for the excursion. The president can’t take his wife out to dinner and a show without being scrutinized by the political opposition? As history has proven, a president in a theatre without adequate security is a tragically bad idea.

Remember: “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.

The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.

Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.

Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing, putting the president’s life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke. Again, history shows that letting men with guns get within range of a president has not served America well in the past.

And still the “birthers” are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody’s sure.

There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a republican or democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country’s borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.

Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule.

Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.

Subsequently, during his State of the Union address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The president showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 or 40 times after that.

Last spring, President Obama took his wife Michelle to see a play in New York City and republicans attacked him over the cost of security for the excursion. The president can’t take his wife out to dinner and a show without being scrutinized by the political opposition? As history has proven, a president in a theatre without adequate security is a tragically bad idea.

Remember: “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.

The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.

Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.

Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing, putting the president’s life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke. Again, history shows that letting men with guns get within range of a president has not served America well in the past.

And still the “birthers” are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody’s sure.

Last month, a 44-year-old woman in Buffalo was quite taken by President Obama when she met him in a chicken wing restaurant called Duff’s. Did she say something about a pleasure and an honour to meet the man or utter encouraging words for the difficult job he is doing? No. Quote: “You’re a hottie with a smokin’ little body.”

Lady, that was the President of the United States you were addressing, not one of the Jonas Brothers! He’s your president for goodness sakes, not the guy driving the Zamboni at “Monster Trucks On Ice.” Maybe next it’ll be, “Take Your President To A Topless Bar Day.”

In President Barack Obama, Americans have a charismatic leader with a good and honest heart. Unlike his predecessor, he’s a very intelligent leader. And unlike that president’s predecessor, he’s a highly moral man.

In President Obama, Americans have the real deal, the whole package and a leader that citizens of almost every country around the world look to with great envy. Given the opportunity, Canadians would trade our leader, hell, most of our leaders for Obama in a heartbeat.

What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it, Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he’s out of office.

America, you know not what you have.

The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected. It’s like the day after electing the first black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better.

President Obama may fail but it will not be a Richard Nixon default fraught with larceny and lies. President Obama, given a fair chance, will surely succeed but his triumph will never come with a Bill Clinton caveat – “if only he’d got control of that zipper.”

Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around the world that their lives could be enhanced by his example, just naturally has to stop.

Believe me, when Americans drive by the White House and see a sign on the lawn that reads: “No shirt. No shoes. No service,” they’ll realize this new national rudeness has gone way, way too far.

For comments, ideas or a signed copy of a book, go to www.williamthomas.ca

OCTOBER 2010 SENIOR LIVING MAGAZINE VANCOUVER & LOWER MAINLAND

Women as Priests-a Photo Journey Excellent

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/women-as-priests.html

Macon Woman's Mission to Become Priest Causes Catholic Controversy

"Macon Woman Mission to Become Priest Causes Catholic Controversy"/Barbara Duff Will Be Ordained a Deacon On Oct. 20th/Hope for a Renewed Catholic Church in Macon, GA.

http://www.41nbc.com/news/local-news/15293-macon-woman-mission-to-become-priest-causes-catholic-controversy 

 

Written by Ashley Minelli Published on Thursday, September 27, 2012 05:40 PM. Posted in Local

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) - Macon woman is breaking roman catholic tradition by taking steps toward becoming an ordained priest.
Pastor of Saint Joseph's Catholic Church, Father Allan McDonald says the break in tradition isn't accepted in the Roman Catholic Church.
"The church has very clear boundaries, and very clear leadership, and very clear teachings, and if one is a catholic, one has to make an ascent to those teachings," says McDonald.
Member of the Roman Catholic Church, Barbara Anne Duff, is challenging the long-standing tradition of the church that only men can be ordained as priests.
"Who can say the spirit has not called me to be a woman priest?" says Duff.
Duff has plans to be ordained as a deacon on October 20th by a female priest who's part of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. It's a group that began with seven women who were ordained by a male bishop on the Danube River in 2002. Duff knows what joining that group means.
"We are excommunicated from the Catholic Church, so we cannot go into a Catholic Church."
Father McDonald says this group are no longer followers of his faith.
"They definitely should not be using the title of Roman Catholic especially once they're excommunicated, and this particular woman would be as soon as that ordination which we would call feigning ordination and mock ordination takes place," says McDonald.
Duff says she doesn't need the walls of a church to practice what she believes.
"They can bar the church from us, but they can't take the church out of us."
Duff says, once she's ordained as a deacon she plans to help another female priest from Noonan start up a church in georgia where they can practice. Duff is aware that the Vatican and Pope Benedict do not recognize her organization of women priests as members of the Roman Catholic Church.

Why Jesus’ Wife Matters a Lot — and Not at All

The recently discovered papyrus reminds us that a celibate, all-male priesthood needs reform

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/25/why-jesuss-wife-matters-a-lot-and-not-at-all/#ixzz27aTUSJMv
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests — a breakaway group founded in 2002 — sent out an e-mail yesterday announcing that its bishops will ordain six new female clerics next month. (The howl you just heard was from the archconservative Catholic League.) These ladies have nothing if not good timing: their missive immediately made me think of last week’s news from Harvard Divinity School that an early Christian text asserts Jesus was married and suggests his wife was a disciple — which would indicate women were eligible for the Catholic priesthood all along. But it also reminded me of the other reaction I usually have to these Da Vinci Code–ish historical discoveries about Jesus: So what?

(MORE: Padgett: Why We’re Still Catholics)

As a Catholic, I do think Jesus scholarship is important. What experts like John Dominic Crossan and others have done to illuminate Christ the man and his ancient milieu enhances religion as well as the record — it raises questions that prod us to examine our faith and its purpose more deeply. But its value in that regard is also limited. As I’ve written on this site before, you could show me incontrovertible scientific proof that Jesus was not the product of a virgin birth or that he didn’t rise from the dead, and it wouldn’t dampen my faith one iota. Likewise, handing me hard evidence that Mary was indeed a virgin mother, or that the resurrection did occur, wouldn’t do much to reinforce it. Faith doesn’t, or shouldn’t, work that way.

Which is why the revelation by Harvard professor Karen King — that a Coptic papyrus fragment quotes Jesus as saying “my wife” as well as declaring that a woman believed to be that spouse, perhaps Mary Magdalene, is one of his apostles — makes me both turn my head and shrug my shoulders. If Jesus was a husband and did consider a woman as clerically worthy as Peter and the rest of the apostolic crew, it matters a lot, for all the reasons Tom Hanks discovers in the (very fictional) Da Vinci Code. That is, it calls into further question one of the Catholic Church’s most questionable constructs, a celibate, all-male priesthood. But in another sense, it doesn’t matter at all: we didn’t need a codex to convince us that a Messiah as human and compassionate as Jesus did not intend his priesthood to look, and in many cases behave, the way it still does today.

(MORE: Padgett: Sorry, Rome: U.S. Catholics Are More Like Melinda Gates)

To understand why the papyrus merits more than just biblical or historical curiosity, consider another religion-related event this month. On Sept. 6, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspected child abuse, making him the highest-ranking member of the U.S. Catholic Church hierarchy to be found guilty of shielding pedophile priests. (Earlier this year in Philadelphia, Monsignor William Lynn was convicted on a felony charge of concealing child-abuse claims in his diocese.) I’m not suggesting that allowing Catholic priests to marry or women to be priests would have stopped the abuse that’s rocked the church. Pedophiles prey regardless of gender or marital status. But I will argue that it could have helped prevent the just as pervasive and just as criminal cover-ups.

And I base that contention on the overweening clericalism that plagues so much of the Catholic priesthood — and which is, at least in part, a consequence of the required celibacy and exclusion of women. Most priests are of course good men and do godly work, and their celibacy per se is not the problem. I respect it — if it’s the priest’s choice. But as I wrote last year when Lynn was arrested, the mandatory segregation of diocesan priests and bishops from the world of wives and children has for centuries risked sending the message that those human joys would somehow sully their vocations — that those things are inferior to the priesthood, and therefore aren’t as worthy of protection as the holy fraternity is. Hence, in my view, one cause of the monstrous insensitivity of church bosses like Lynn.

That also explains why it’s welcome to hear any historical evidence that Jesus didn’t consider clerical marriage or female ordination anathema to the religion he founded. But again, such evidence isn’t, or shouldn’t be, necessary.

(MORE: Padgett: The Catholic Contraction)

The kind of belief we associate with faith doesn’t rise or fall on archeological digs or, as in The Da Vinci Code’s case, decrypted symbology. At their core, religions are stories, dramas so powerfully meaningful that they become for billions of people their cultural means of communing with God. Five years ago atheist zealots hooted and Christian fundamentalists hollered when The Lost Tomb of Jesus,a documentary produced by Titanic director James Cameron, claimed to have unearthed confirmation that Christ never left his grave. But both sides got it wrong: from Christians to Hindus to pagans, most believers don’t predicate their shared faith that light ultimately defeats darkness on the laboratory verification of ancient miracle narratives.

So just as I don’t get that worked up when a “find” purports to debunk my faith, I don’t get too excited when one appears to validate my faith. Or at least my convictions about the Catholic clergy, as King’s Jesus-was-married codex would seem to do. At a time when the Vatican, panicked by growing Catholic support for female ordination, is senselessly hounding U.S. nuns for their “radical feminism,” the latest piece of papyrus does serve as a useful reminder of how wrong Rome is in this matter. But most of us knew that long before King deciphered it.

Padgett is TIME's Miami and Latin America bureau chief. The views expressed are solely his own.

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/09/25/why-jesuss-wife-matters-a-lot-and-not-at-all/#ixzz27aStn27T

Press Release-Six Women to Be Ordained in Atlanta

Monday, September 24, 2012

Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests Following Gospel Tradition of Female Disciples, Six Women to Be Ordained in Atlanta, Georgia on October 20, 2012/ARCWP Press Release

September 24, 2012

Contact: Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 859-684-4247,

rhythmsofthedance@gmail.com

Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan, 703-505-0004,sofiabmm@aol.com

Celebration of Priestly Ordination for:

Diane Dougherty of Newnan, GA, 770-683-8101, 678-857-7146, add57@numail.org

Celebration of Ordination to the Diaconate for:

Barbara Anne Duff of Macon, GA, 478-718-0613, barbara.duff@cox.net

Debra Meyers of Batavia, OH, 513-735-2876, drmeyers@aol.com

Joleane Presley of Manassas, VA, 410-900-3998, joprsly@gmail.com

Rosemarie Smead of Bedford, KY, 502-663-1237, shanti.rosemarie@gmail.com

Irene Scaramazza of Columbus, OH, 614-357-0626, irenes@columbus.rr.com

See:http://www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/

http://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/

“She will be able to be my disciple,” Jesus says in the recently announced discovery of a Coptic fourth century papyrus. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?_r=0

Today, women priests continue to follow the tradition of women disciples living and preaching the Gospel taught to them by Jesus.

On Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. Diane Dougherty (Newnan, Georgia) will be ordained a priest in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP) Barbara Anne Duff (Macon,GA), Debra Meyers (Batavia, OH), Joleane Presley (Manassas, Va), Rosemarie Smead (Bedford, KY), and Irene Scaramazza (Columbus, OH) will be ordained deacons in ARCWP. The presiding bishop will be Bridget Mary Meehan of Falls Church, Virginia and Sarasota, Florida. A warm welcome has been given by Pastor Paul Graetz and The First Metropolitan Community Church, an Inclusive Christian Community. The ceremony will take place there at 1 p.m., 1379 Tullie Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30329. All are welcome.

Media are invited to a pre-ordination press conference on Friday, October 19, at 1:00 p.m. at the church with the candidates and Bridget Mary Meehan. Call Janice (859-684-4247) to schedule an interview.

The candidates are theologically prepared and have many years of experience in ministry. Diane Dougherty, an educator and native of Ohio, served Catholic communities as a Sister of Humility of Mary for 23 years. As a lay ecclesial minister she served in Catholic schools and parishes as a master educator and catechist and in the Religious Education and Faith Formation office for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. "I consider my journey toward priesthood as the next phase in my vocation to serve within the Catholic tradition, said Dougherty. By becoming a woman priest my original call to serve Christ through the church is fulfilled and I hope my ordination will open the door to the many women Christ is calling to serve."

A former Maryknoll Sister and educator, Barbara Anne Duff has retired after a nursing career in VA hospitals. A wife, grandmother and author, Debra Meyers, teaches history and women's studies at Northern Kentucky University. Joleane Presley, a wife and senior hospital chaplain, provides pastoral care to patients recovering from physical disabilities. A former Catholic sister for 21 years, Irene Scaramazza has worked as an educator, community mental health counselor, hospice chaplain and spiritual director who leads home liturgies. Dr. Rosemarie Smead, a former Discalced Carmelite nun is a retired professor and family therapist who has written six books and videos on training therapists to work with youth.

The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests rejoices in a “holy shakeup” that millions of Catholics worldwide welcome. The good news now is that male priests, bishops, a cardinal as well as theologians have expressed their support of female priests. They are following in the footsteps of Maryknoll Roy Bourgeois whose prophetic call for a dialogue on women priests is being heard in more and more places today in our Church.

“Nothing can stop the movement of the spirit toward human rights, justice and equality in our world and in our Church,” said Bridget Mary Meehan. “The full equality of women is the voice of God in our time.”

The Women Priests movement in the Roman Catholic Church advocates a new model of priestly ministry united with the people with whom we minister. We stand in prophetic obedience to Jesus who calls women and men to be disciples and equals. The movement began with the ordination of seven women on the Danube in 2002. Today there are over 140 in the movement worldwide. ARCWP is in the United States and Latin America. Our specific charism within the broader global Roman Catholic Women Priests initiative is to live Gospel equality and justice for women in the Church and in society now. We work in solidarity with the poor and marginalized for transformative justice in partnership with all believers. Our vision is to live as a community of equals in decision making both as an organization and within all our faith communities. We advocate the renewal of the vision of Jesus in the Gospel in our Church and world.

Posted byBridget Mary Meehanat9:44 AM

 

ARCWP goes to New Orleans

Comment:  After a short hiatus, I am back to supply good reading for my blog.  Donna Rougeux, a newly ordained priest and Janice Sevre Duszynska a priest who is an activist in the Peace and Justice Movement and I traveled to New Orleans for a house mass and time to see the good work being done in the area for the poor and marginalized.  You can read more about them in Meet the Priests. 

It was an eye opening experience, one filled with hope for the future of Catholicism.  Thanks Donna for putting this into words.  dd

Go to- Meet Women Priests-
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4422028396391411284#editor/target=page;pageID=3858291798880773526
to learn more about Lexington's Priests Janice and Donna.

 

 

Taking the movement to New Orleans

By Donna Rougeux

As we drove into the town that just experienced hurricane Isaac we swirled with excitement to see our friends, Bill and Debbie Quigley. Long time friends of Janice, kindred spirits of the movement and devoted social justice activists, Bill and Debbie, welcomed us into their home with enthusiasm.

Jennifer Milona and her two school aged sons came to the house to meet us and arranged for us to spend the next day visiting three different places that minister to the needs of people dealing with poverty and homelessness in New Orleans. We visited The Rebuild Center, The Hope House and The Catholic Worker House.

The Rebuild Center at St. Joseph Church serves lunch daily and offers other services like, showers, laundry, legal and medical services and a food pantry. We enjoyed meeting some of the nuns and volunteers that keep the center operating. We felt like we were the Nuns on the Bus as we left to have lunch in a local restaurant and then on to the Hope House where we talked with sister Lillie and brother Don. They shared with us the history of the Hope House. As they told different stories of some of the people who have been helped over the years through their ministry, we were moved to tears and felt our hearts being inspired by this saintly lady and gentleman.

 Then we went to the Catholic Worker House to have the traditional Monday meal of red beans and rice while we met some of the people living there along with the people who keep the house in operation. I was deeply affected by the story of a woman and her sister who are current residents of the Catholic Worker House. They previously lived with their mother who died four months before the hurricane Katrina disaster. The storm destroyed their house and everything they owned. These ladies who had beautiful smiles on their faces are currently looking each day for jobs. They have hope that they will get a job in October in a hotel because they have heard that business usually picks up just before the holiday season. One of these ladies is an artist and talked about losing all of her paintings and art supplies. She looks forward to rebuilding her stock of supplies and being able to paint again. She enthusiastically accepted my invitation to call me when she was painting again. I will continue to pray for her and her sister that they will get jobs. I told her that I look forward to getting that call from her and that I want to buy one of her masterpieces someday.

 On Tuesday evening Janice led the liturgy as deacon Diane and I assisted. It was thrilling to be received by 46 people who eagerly wanted to participate in the first liturgy in New Orleans that was led by a Roman Catholic Woman Priest. It was heartwarming to hear the voices of the people participating in the liturgy as they dialoged with ideas from the homily and as they participated by individually reading parts of the Eucharistic prayer. Two school aged boys each took their turn and were visibly pleased to read part of the pray. They were very happy to meet Janice because they had previously seen her in Pink Smoke Over the Vatican.

 It is humbling, life giving, and exciting to take our movement to new places. Our experience seems similar to the disciples who were sent out to spread the good news when the early church was being born. This is yet another road trip with Janice that has given me the opportunity to connect with kindred spirits in another place and be part of growing the movement. It fills my heart to overflowing to have the privilege to see Sophia breathe new life into a sick and dying church with this movement as it offers hope, encouragement and empowerment to the people it touches. The people we met in New Orleans seemed to be inspired by our visit. I am inspired by them because they give me such hope for a church that is living, awake and functioning as the kindom on earth.