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“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.

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?”

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

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!

Christine Judd, dean of students and athletic director for Cathedral High School, stepped down after meeting with school administrators on Wednesday, according to The Republican newspaper.

Judd worked for the school for 12 years, where she rose from science teacher to dean of students and, three years ago, athletic director. While the state has allowed gay people to marry since 2004, same-sex marriage is still not sanctioned by the Catholic Church.

“Cathedral had nothing to do with this,” she said in the article. “This was a diocesan decision. In the end, the timing of this issue really affects the kids. That is where it has the most effect.”

Note: 40 Cathdral High students held a protest outside of St. Michael’s Cathedral in support of Judd.  Heartwarming.  More here.

As in many European countries, Belgium has been slow to confront sexual abuse. That changed this past April with the high-profile resignation of the former bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who confessed to sexually abusing his nephew for many years. Outrage increased with the publication of transcripts of recordings of Cardinal Godfried Danneells advising the nephew not to go public with the story. Danneels, who has retired, admitted that advice was a mistake and apologized.

43% of the victims whose accounts are in the commission’s report came forward in the week after the Vangheluwe story broke. “The Vangheluwe case was a landmark because it was the first time people saw you could have a normal, famous person who was actually a hidden sociopath,” Dr. Adriaenssens said.

“Their stories help answer the question of how there could have been so much abuse and nobody said anything,” said Dr. Adriaenssens. He blames church leaders “for giving psycho-sociopaths a place to hide for many years.”

Description: No one denies that the impact of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) has been massive. Yet, almost five decades later, the very categories in which the Council is understood are subject to fierce debate. Sharp dichotomies have been posed between the “letter” of conciliar documents and the “spirit” of conciliar experience. Interpretations stressing continuities with the church’s past have been pitted against those stressing discontinuities.

In “Search for Vatican II” Joseph A. Komonchak, one of the world’s leading scholars of the Council, will examine fundamental ways of viewing the Council and what difference they make.

Part of the international editorial team that produced the acclaimed History of Vatican II, Father Komonchak is professor emertius of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, and a priest of the archdiocese of New York.

Dr. W. King Mott, Associate Professor of Political Science at Seton Hall and a member of the Women and Gender Department, created the upperclassmen seminar “The Politics of Gay Marriage” for the fall semester.

Seton Hall won’t officially confirm nor deny whether the seminar is a go. But Mott says he has yet to be told Tuesday’s first class is canceled, and the class is listed on the school’s online schedule, complete with a classroom number. (Students are told to buy the text What’s Love Got To Do With It?: The Case for Same-Sex Marriage, by Democratic State Sens. Raymond Lesniak and Loretta Weinberg.)

“The best schools offer controversial classes,” Mott told the Setonian in a story published earlier this week. “The class is not about advocacy, but about studying the issue from an academic perspective. It’s about awareness.”

Mott, who is gay, has clashed with the church and university officials before. In 2005, he was demoted from his post as associate dean of Seton Hall’s College of Arts and Sciences after his letter challenging the church’s view on homosexuality was published in The Star-Ledger.

School officials objected to Mott signing the letter with his Seton Hall title, causing confusion about whether he was speaking on behalf of the university. The letter said the church unfairly scapegoats gay men for the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Faculty members protested Mott’s demotion, arguing school officials violated his academic freedom when they punished him for writing a letter. But Seton Hall’s provost upheld the demotion and Mott, who has tenure, remained on campus as a prominent professor.

Read more here.

Hooray for Dr. Mott! His bio.

Here. 

Fish Out of Water on July 12th is especially funny.