Interact

A spiritual retreat for women who have felt marginalized because of their orientation – is planned for July 29-31, 2011. The retreat begins at 4 PM on Friday and ends at 1 PM on Sunday.  $145 including meals. Sponsored by the Loretto Women’s Network, c/o 4000 S. Wadsworth Boulevard, Littleton, CO.

Space is limited, please register early.  Contact schisselje@aol.com for questions and registration.

Republican congressman and Speaker of the House John A. Boehner is scheduled to give the commencement address at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC today. He is also about to come in for a dose of the same harsh criticism previously leveled at some Democrats–including President Obama–who have been honored by Catholic universities: the accusation that his policies violate basic teachings of the Church.  More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleagues have written a pointed letter to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House of Representatives will hurt the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable, and that he therefore has failed to unhold basic Catholic moral teachings.

“Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the church’s most ancient moral teachings,” the letter says. “From the apostles to the present, the magisterium of the church has insisted that those in power are morally obligated to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs ofthe poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now you work in opposition to it.”

The letter writers criticize Mr. Boehner’s support for a budget that cut financing for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, while granting tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.  They call such policies “anti-life,” a particularly biting reference because the phrase is usually applied by Catholic bishops and conservatives to politicians and others who support access to abortions.

Here’s the letter – http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/breaking-news-catholic-academics-challenge-boehner

He must really be smarting.

Rose Marie Berger is a poet and social justice activist who lives in Washington, DC. Berger speaks frequently on the relationships between faith, art and activism. In her talks, she invites audiences to consider how their faith is enriched by the arts, how daily life in their neighborhoods and cities influences their faith, and how personal faith fuels activism for the common good.

She has a wonderful Advent reflection on hope and small things you can read here. 

I especially enjoyed Berger’s post on  Sr. Joan Chittister’s talk – “To Be A Moral Force in the World.” I found an inspiring Advent message and hope you do, too.

“There are three obstacles to our personal development that would make us a moral force in the world.

First, fear of loss of status has done more to chill character than history will ever know. We do not curry favor with kings by pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. We do not gain promotions by countering the beloved viewpoints of the chair of the board or the bishop of the diocese. We do not figure in the neighborhood barbecues if we embarrass the Pentagon employees in the gathering by a public commitment to demilitarization. It is hard time, this choice of destiny between public conscience and social acceptability. Then we tell ourselves that nothing is to be gained by upsetting people. And sure enough, nothing is.

Second, personal comfort is a factor, too, in the decision to let other people bear responsibility for the tenor of our times. It takes a great deal of effort to turn my attention beyond the confines of where I work and where I live and what my children do. It lies in registering interest in something beyond my small, small world and perhaps taking part in group discussions or lectures. It requires turning my mind to substance beyond sitcoms and the sports channel and the local weekly. It means not allowing myself to go brain-dead before the age of forty. But these things that cost comfort are exactly the things that will, ultimately, make life better for my work and my children.

Third, fear of criticism is no small part, surely, of this unwillingness to be born into the world for which I have been born. To differ from the mainstream of humanity, to take a position that is not popular tests the tenor of the best debaters, the strongest thinkers, the most skilled of speakers. To do that at the family table or in the office takes the utmost in courage, the ultimate in love, the keenest communication skills. And who of us have them?

The process of human discourse is a risky one. Other people speak more clearly or convincingly than we do. Other people have better academic backgrounds than we do. Other people have authority and robes and buttons and titles that we do not now and ever will have, and to confront those things takes nerve of a special gauge. I may lose. I may make a perfect fool out of myself. But everybody has to be perfect about something. What else can be more worth it than giving the gift of the perfect question in a world uncomfortable with the answers but too frightened or too complacent or too ambitious to raise these doubts again?”

In a random seach I came across a very interesting film: In God’s House: Asian Amercian Lesbian and Gay Families in the Church.

You can see the trailer here. 

“Asian American lesbians and gays have been largely invisible in Christian churches…Yet lesbian and gay Asian Amercians and their families worship and serve in church every day. Where are their voices? This honest and thought-provoking film tells a story that the church needs to hear: that of Asian American Christian lesbian and gay people, their pastors, and their parents. The DVD has subtitles in Chinese, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Pilipino and Vietnamese.”

http://www.ingodshouse.com

“God has created me

to do Him some definite service;

He has committed some work to me

which He has not committed to another.

I have my mission–I may never know it in this life;

but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain,

a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught.

I shall do good, I shall do His work;

I shall be an angel of peace,

a preacher of truth in my own place,

while not intending it,

if I do but keep His commandments

and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore, my God,

I will put myself without reserve into your hands.

What have I in heaven,

and apart from you what want I upon earth?

My flesh and my heart fail,

but God is the God of my heart,

and my portion forever.

Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman

This heartfelt prayer speaks so much to the witness of lesbian and gay Catholics in the Church.

My earlier post about Cardinal Newman and his beatification controversy can be read on Nihil Obstat. Cardinal Newman – The Questions Continue

Plenty of English drizzle for the ceremony- love those nuns’ rain hats!