shame on  you. Fool me 1,354 times, I am complicit.

“WASHINGTON — For President Obama,  the news on Friday that Israelis planning to construct Jewish settlements in a geographically sensitive area east of Jerusalem came as a rude shock.”  NYTimes

Just to clarify: “The Approval of 3,000 new housing units in Jerusalem and the West Bank was a slap in the face for US President Barack Obama, former prime minister Ehud Olmert said Saturday at the Saban Forum in Washington.

“During a conversation hosted by David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Olmert stated that the construction was the worst move Israel could make: ‘This is the worst slap in the face of a US president.’”  Jerusalem Post

Speaking of conservative Catholics, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, like Bill Donohue, loves Christmas because it is a chance to pick ugly public fights. Which, really, is what the season is all about.

But his on-air dust-up with American Atheists’ Dave Silverman not only made Silverman look good but it forced O’Reilly onto some treacherous ground, I thought, as he made statements like:

“It’s a fact that Christianity is NOT a religion. It is a philosophy.”

“Roman Catholicism is a religion,” he says.”Judaism is a religion.” But Christianity — nope.

Interestingly, Pope Benedict has also insisted that Christianity is not a religion; rather, it is the truth, and  Catholicism is simply the necessary “container” (I forget his exact term) for that truth.

But that exalts Christianity, whereas O’Reilly seems to diminish Christianity, as well as leaving it vulnerable to exclusion from the public square on all sorts of levels — after all, there are no constitutional protections for philosophies, are there?

I think the secularists’ “war on Christmas” displays is profoundly silly, and sad. But emptying Christmas of any religious meaning to try to win a round in that battle seems self-defeating.

In any event, is Christianity just a philosophy and not a religion? Or is O’Reilly preaching heresy here? “Hello, Cardinal Mueller…?”

Mediaite has the story. Below is the video of the exchange.

When Pope John Paul II visited the Dheisheh refugee camp outside Bethlehem in 2000, he spoke with much compassion to the Palestinians who gathered to meet him. “Above all,” he said, “you bear the sad memory of what you were forced to leave behind. Not just material possessions, but your freedom, the closeness of relatives, and the familiar  surroundings and cultural traditions which nourished  your personal and family life.”

John Paul “felt close to the Palestinian people in their sufferings,” as he put it, but still found a warm acceptance when he visited Israel the following day.

I was thinking back to those events, which I had written about as a reporter for Newsday, when I saw news that the Vatican is praising today’s decision by the United Nations General Assembly to upgrade Palestine to the role of non-member observer state. “The Holy See welcomes with favor the decision of the General Assembly by which Palestine has become a Non-member Observer State of the United Nations,” a statement said, according to Reuters. The Vatican renewed its call for an internationally protected status for Jerusalem. Invoking religious freedom, it said there must be a “safeguarding the freedom of religion and of conscience, the identity and sacred character of Jerusalem as a Holy City, (and) respect for, and freedom of, access to its holy places.”

The Vatican’s announcement stands in sharp contrast to the Obama administration’s reaction. Read the rest of this entry »

By now you’ve likely seen the New York Times story by Sharon Otterman about the push to canonize Dorothy Day: “In Hero of the Catholic Left, a Conservative Cardinal Sees a Saint.” We might discuss the pros and cons (mostly cons, I think) of telling this story this way, lining up the players on either side of a left/right divide. I will say that I think the article is most interesting when it steps outside that framework and visits Maryhouse to talk to Martha Hennessy, Day’s granddaughter, and then St. Joseph House for a discussion with volunteers. The Catholic Worker context of those last few paragraphs makes the struggle over Day’s place in Catholic culture wars seem as petty as it is.

What I really want to talk about, though, is this paragraph, speculating about what might be motivating Cardinal Timothy Dolan to support Day’s cause:

“It is an opportunity for him to demonstrate that conservative Catholics are not uncaring, without accepting liberal principles in how you service the poor,” said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League, a conservative antidefamation organization. “She was not, like many liberal Catholics today, a welfare state enthusiast.”

When the bishops won’t speak to the NYT, who will speak for the bishops? Our friend Bill Donohue stands ready as always to step into the breach. Take note, all those who get offended when anyone suggests that the U.S. bishops’ recent forays into public-policy discussions have been self-defeatingly partisan. It is true that most (though not all) of the more vocal U.S. bishops try to avoid sounding overtly partisan when they speak to political issues. Donohue has no such compunctions. Which is just one reason the bishops ought to be concerned about allowing him to position himself as their surrogate in the media.

We’ve been over this before, and whenever Donohue comes in for criticism, someone will surely say, “I think there’s a real need for what he does, but….” By “what he does” I believe such people mean the “antidefamation” work of the Catholic League — protesting insults to and attacks on the Catholic faith and people. I actually would not agree, but let’s set that aside. Is that, in fact, what Donohue does? Is it the principal work of the Catholic League? I don’t think so. Yes, Donohue occasionally finds a legitimate insult to get worked up about. But for the most part, he is a public figure who engages in conservative Catholic identity politics for fun and profit. Read the rest of this entry »

So Benedict XVI writes a characteristically smart and accessible and spiritual book, this one on the infancy of Jesus, the third in his trilogy, and in it he makes some commonplace observations about the likelihood of various Christmas traditions — all the while highlighting the centrality of the Christmas message, the Incarnation.

But some believers and bloggers and media outlets are scandalized at the heresy of questioning the such dogmatic precepts as the presence of cute farm animals at the manger. Reuters’ Phil Pullella has the holiday hullabaloo:

(Reuters) – And so it came to pass that in the eighth year of Pope Benedict’s reign, some tabloid and social media decreed that he had cancelled Christmas.

The day after Benedict’s latest book “The Infancy Narratives – Jesus of Nazareth” – was published on November 20, Vatican officials found some headlines they were not expecting.

“Killjoy pope crushes Christmas nativity traditions,” read one tabloid headline, claiming that Benedict had snubbed traditions such as animals in nativity scenes and caroling.

“Pope sets out to debunk Christmas myths,” ran another.

Holy Scrooge! Some blogs unceremoniously branded Benedict the new Grinch that stole Christmas and one rocketed him to the “top of the grumpy list for 2012.”

And then there was this zinger headline from a web news site: “Pope bans Christmas”.

“I think that what people need to realize here is that the pope is trying to be as historical as he can be,” Father Robert Dodaro, professor of patristics at Rome’s Patristic Institute, told Pullella.

“He wants to see the biblical narratives as history where possible but he is also trying to explain details in the narratives that cannot be historically verified,” he said.

God forbid.

UPDATE: The Vatican paper weighs in, rather unhelpfully, saying the “media confusion” is another “symptom” of the “widespread and silent marginalization of God” in contemporary society. It is also a “sign of the secularization and spiritual desertification” of today’s world.

I’m not so sure that a love of Christmas traditions, albeit somewhat unbalanced, is a sign of godlessness and barbarians at the gate. Maybe it’s a sign that the Church has work to do on education as well as evangelization, and needs to do it better. Benedict’s books have been bestsellers, and this one is likely to be so as well. But maybe atheists are buying them all to burn them. For heat. Over the solstice. Yeah, that’s it…

What do you do after winning four Olympic gold medals?

If you’re U.S. swimmer Missy Franklin, you go home to Colorado for your last chance to swim with your high school team.  Franklin’s a senior at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, and will—as she did last winter—swim an abbreviated schedule with her schoolmates this winter.

In an earlier post about the moral and physical perils of football, especially big-time, big money teams like Notre Dame’s once and future king of the hill, many commenters understandably grew defensive about any observations that might call into question the purity and nobility of the greatest witness to the faith in American Catholicism today: the Fighting Irish. (Sorry, Saint Dorothy Day.)

One of the proofs offered for the moral efficacy of Notre Dame football was the indisputably powerful witness of linebacker Manti Te’o, whose play on the field has made him a Heisman contender and whose comportment off the field has made him an example of the way this Catholic university football program can “mold boys into impressive, spiritual, other-centered men.”

Wonder of wonders, it turns out that Te’o is a practicing Mormon who brought his class act to South Bend despite serious reservations about attending Notre Dame. CNN’s Eric Marrapodi has the story:

Te’o gave voice to that struggle in his announcement in 2009 that he’d attend the Indiana college, which was broadcast live on ESPN. “I’ve prayed hard about it and my family has thought hard and long about it,” he said.

Graduating from Punahou High School in Hawaii, Te’o had his choice of the best football programs in the country. His Mormon faith was a serious factor in the decision-making process, said his former high school coach, Kale Ane.

“A lot of that weighed on him,” Ane, who coached Te’o for three years, told CNN.  “The final weight was getting his message out on a broader scale.  A Mormon at a Catholic school was a good way to say, ‘You can keep your faith no matter where you go.’ ”

The University of Notre Dame’s undergraduates are 83% Catholic, according to the admissions department.

“It hasn’t been an issue,” said Notre Dame Athletics spokesman John Heisler, speaking of Te’o's membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “I think there was more an issue when he was being recruited to him having access to his religion in South Bend and here on campus.”

“The emphasis here is that this is a place of faith and it really doesn’t matter what your faith is,” Heisler told CNN, noting that he himself is not Catholic.  “Faith is really important to people here.  Whether you’re a Catholic or a Mormon, it’s a place of great faith.”

Not only that, but the current No. 1 team in the nation is less than half Catholic, and has three other Mormon players. (And of course Notre Dame’s faculty can also boast David Campbell, the top-notch political scientist of religion, and an LDS member.)

So if Notre Dame wins a national championship, can Catholics really claim bragging rights?

There has been a lot of discussion of this chart:

I want to recommend the ongoing conversation at Talking Points Memo, where Josh Marshall has been posting a very interesting series of reflections by voters of color (of various backgrounds) about how they have taken conservatives’ racialized attacks on Obama as assaults on their own status as Americans.  I’m hopeful that this most recent election may have been the tipping point for sensible conservatives who are uncomfortable with the GOP’s Southern Strategy and appeals to nativist sentiment, of which this chart is at least partially the fruit.  But I’ve been disappointed with the conversation since the election.  It’s going to take significantly more than comprehensive immigration reform to reverse the trends reflected in the chart.

I noted yesterday that the papal nuncio had cited–not approvingly, I hasten to add–a post from DotCommonweal that addressed the issue of religious freedom as well as the relationship between the bishops and the laity with respect to matters of public policy.

It occurred to me later that the Archbishop Viganò might benefit from reading other pieces in the magazine that deal with these issues, particularly Commonweal’s symposium from earlier this year that responded to the U.S. bishops’ statement Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.  The symposium featured comments from Peter Steinfels, William Galston and Cathleen Kaveny just to name a few.

I was thinking of offering some thoughts on the Archbishop’s address, but I don’t think I can improve on what the panel has already written.  So I will refrain.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s presentation at the annual conference of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.

Alasdair MacIntyre “Catholic Instead of What?” Response by Sean Kelsey from ND Center for Ethics and Culture on Vimeo.

I found Michael Gerson’s column in today’s Washington Post about the movie “Lincoln”  well-written and thoughtful. I haven’t seen the movie, but his reflection makes me want to go. He ends:

The union would be well served today by herding all 535 of its legislators into a darkened theater for a screening of “Lincoln.” The issues they face — from public debt to immigration — are less momentous than slavery but momentous enough for discomfort. They might take away a greater appreciation for flexibility and compromise. They should also note that the dramatic culmination of the movie is a roll call — a list of forgotten legislators whose hesitant, conflicted choices were as important as the outcome of battle. Their shared profession may lack in dignity but not in consequence.

Have you seen it, and what is your take away?

Anyone who writes for publication wonders from time to time whether anyone is reading their work.  It was with some interest, then, that I noticed that the Papal Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, quoted a post from DotCommonweal in a recent address he made on the subject of “Religious Freedom, Persecution, and Martyrdom.”

To be sure, the Archbishop was not entirely pleased with the post in question–which was penned by our own Eduardo Peñalver–as can be gleaned from the following paragraphs:

Cardinal Dolan has recently exhorted the Catholic faithful to confront the challenges which the faith faces today. His brother bishops in this country and around the world have taken similar action. It is a desperate day when well-educated persons label these efforts as attempts by the hierarchy to control the activities of Catholics in public life. Some have even criticized publicly Cardinal Dolan’s call to the faithful to defend the Catholic contribution to political debate in this fashion: “Dolan to Lay Catholics: Be Our ‘Attractive, Articulate’, (and Unpaid) Flacks.” I pray that the authors meant well in saying this, in spite of the statement’s disparaging tone, but these persons fail to recall the nature of the Church as explained by the Second Vatican Council and reiterated by Blessed John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (1988).

In this exhortation, the Pope urged the lay faithful to be mindful of their crucial role in temporal affairs as disciples of Christ rather than as elements of some political or secular ideology that bases its platform on an indecipherable formula established on the ambiguous foundation that unsuccessfully relies on the cure of “social justice.” It is the proper function of bishops to be teachers of the faith, but it is also true that the laity exercise a major role in implementing this same faith in the affairs of the world. This is why John Paul repeatedly encouraged the faithful with the words of Jesus: “You go into my vineyard, too” (Mt 20:4).

In order to respond affirmatively to this call, religious freedom is essential. We are still a far cry from fully embracing the Holy Father’s encouraging exhortation when we witness in an unprecedented way a platform being assumed by a major political party, having intrinsic evils among its basic principles, and Catholic faithful publicly supporting it. There is a divisive strategy at work here, an intentional dividing of the Church; through this strategy, the body of the Church is weakened, and thus the Church can be more easily persecuted.

I’m tempted to post some thoughts on the Archbishops’ remarks, but to be honest I am growing rather exhausted with this whole debate.   In any case, my hat is off to Eduardo for gaining the attention of such a distinguished reader…:-)

The new issue is now online.

Highlights: Joseph Sorrentino’s photo essay on the dangers faced by migrants traveling through Mexico aboard “the train of the unknowns,” Elizabeth Kirkland Cahill on the connections between Mr. Biswas and Mr. Bond (James Bond), and our 2012 Christmas critics. Also posted today: E.J. Dionne on how Mitt Romney’s loss seems to be spurring bishops to rethink the church’s rightward tilt.

The last few dotCommonweal posts on the Middle East, specifically the rain of missiles from and to Gaza and Israel, have underlined the degree to which many Americans support Israel and have little or no sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza. Media coverage has fostered this view, unbalanced some would say. Thus, among the more interesting media commentary following the recent truce are pieces that break with that unbalanced treatment. Here are some of them:

Stephen Walt: “Why Americans Don’t Understand the Middle East.”

The Ombudsman of the Washington Post: “Photo of dead baby in Gaza holds part of the ‘truth.’”

The London Review of Books: “Why Israel Didn’t Win.”

Monday, 8:40 AM: This just in: Support Palestinian Statehood  by Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo Accords, who has served as Israel’s deputy foreign minister and minister of justice.

The comments are turned off to encourage reading of these articles; perhaps in a day or two I will turn it on.

Update:  As hinted, comments on.

Coming up on Tuesday, November 27,  E.J. Dionne will be delivering the Sorensen Lecture at Yale Divinity School. The topic: “Our Divided Political Heart and the Election of 2012.” The lecture, which begins at 5:30 p.m., is free and open to the public, but if you can’t make it to New Haven in person you can watch the live webcast or follow on Twitter at @YaleDivSchool. More details here.

The Mosque of Imam Hussein is one of Cairo’s holiest shrines.  It contains the tomb of the Prophet’s grandson.  It sits on a clean well lit little square next to the ancient bazaar.

My friend Ken and I were to meet the Ustez (Professor) near the entrance closest to Fishawi’s Coffee Shop, our ultimate destination.  But we were early.  And since the Ustez was reliably late to everything, we were very early.

The mosque is a beautiful simple building that looked gray in the indirect light cast by the surrounding shops.  I glanced inside.  Like all venerable holy places I have visited, whether very active churches in Rome or temples in Japan, this one gave a sense of profound peace.  The floor was covered with beautiful well-worn carpets.  Lamps hung from the ceiling giving the interior a charming diffuse light, as though the inside lay within the shade of a giant tree.  There were people inside, some sitting on the floor talking softly in small groups, some sitting alone, some reading, some sleeping.

— Can we go in?

— No, no way, man.  Not this mosque.  This mosque is strictly forbidden to infidels.

— What if I did go in?

— Oh, you wouldn’t want to do that.  If they find an infidel in this mosque, they take out the Rug of Blood, make him kneel on it, and then they decapitate him.  Since the police are all Muslims, they would do nothing to help you.  It is their law.

I am ashamed to admit that I believed this crap about the “Rug of Blood”.  It seemed to me that anything was possible in Cairo.

Read the rest of this entry »

Appropriately, the “lectio continua” for the weekdays of the close of the liturgical year is from the Book of Revelation. The second reading for this Sunday’s Eucharist will also come from Revelation.

If the reading from Revelation was proclaimed this morning, we heard part of chapter five:

I wept bitterly because there was nobody fit to open the scroll and read it, but one of the elders said to me, ‘There is no need to cry: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed, and he will open the scroll and the seven seals of it.’

Then I saw, standing between the throne with its four animals and the circle of the elders, a Lamb that seemed to have been sacrificed.

Joseph Mangina, in his wonderful commentary on Revelation (Brazos Press), writes:

What John hears is a Lion, what he sees is a Lamb. What he hears is strength, what he sees is weakness. What he hears is a conqueror, what he sees is the quintessential victim — the Lamb. This Lamb is not just destined for sacrifice, moreover, but has actually been slaughtered. If what John hears is life, what he sees is death. And yet not so, because the Lamb is standing, so that the slaughter is the mark of his victory; he has passed through death and now stands somehow beyond it.

Mangina continues:

How we interpret the entire Apocalypse depends on how we interpret the scene that now lies before us … Christ really is and never ceases to be the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is indeed a figure of power, but his power is realized precisely in the self-giving love he displays at the cross … The Lamb embodies the triumph of life; he is slaughtered, but stands and lives: “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore” (1:18).

How blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!

That may seem like an odd question, and an unadulterated heresy, especially in a week in which Notre Dame is ranked No. 1 in college football for the first time since the Council of Trent. The team even merits the cover of Sports Illustrated — and a bonus Latin headline! (Is it correct? Can Notre Dame students read it?)

Of course the SI cover means the team is doomed.

But in a more serious vein, Notre Dame’s return to glory comes just as disturbing questions are being raised about college football and contact sports in general that are causing debilitating injuries, for young and old alike. Big-time football programs have the potential to corrupt colleges themselves, as we have seen at Penn States and in the incidences of execrable behavior by players who are shielded by the administration.

The promo for the SI article says, “The Irish are marching onward to the national championship game – and downward from the moral high ground they have claimed for a century.”

I don’t have a subscription and don’t know what problems the story might detail. But Notre Dame has had its share of scandals and the sport overall is undergoing intense scrutiny.

At Real Clear Religion, Jeff Weiss has an article exploring some of the moral hazards, and even citing Tertullian — via a recent Christian Century cover story.

Earlier this month, the New York Times highlighted Liberty University’s crusade to make the school founded by Jerry Falwell the evangelical Notre Dame when it comes to football:

“We think there would be a vast, committed fan base of conservative, evangelical Christians around the country and maybe even folks who are conservative politically who would rally behind Liberty football,” Falwell Jr. said, smiling at the thought. “They would identify with our philosophy.”

The university has a motto for the cause: “Champions for Christ.”

“And yes, there are parallels to Notre Dame,” Falwell continued. “There might even be a little rivalry there — the Catholics against the Protestants.”

Well, better to battle it out on the gridiron rather than on the field of battle.

At MOJ, Michael Moreland cites Mark Massa in noting how Notre Dame football “bequeathed a sense of pride and identity to generations of immigrant Catholics.” I’m sure that’s so. But what is the purpose of the program now? Still simple tribal pride? Evangelization? Or as a vehicle for the divine?

Moreland writes:

“As the Catholic Church in America faces the legacy of scandal and seeming collapse of institutional presence, there’s hope that God somehow brings about dramatic changes of fortune, sometimes in mundane ways (like college football, maybe) and sometimes in ways that change the world. It may all come to a crashing end this Saturday in Los Angeles against USC or on January 7th in the BCS national championship game, but, for at least a week, we can rejoice at how quickly things can change and our hope affirmed.”

Does the success of Notre Dame football affirm such a thing? Or could it affirm the opposite — that Notre Dame football should not field a team, or should at least diminish the role of the team?

Or am I showing my Puritan roots here on the eve of Thanksgiving?

Now featured on our home page, Ian Marcus Corbin on the vexing legacy of Catholic jazz composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, who in 1969 received a commission from the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace to compose her third Mass, called Music for Peace:

As the 1970s began, Williams turned her energy to the task of seeing this Mass celebrated in a symbolic center of Catholicism—either St. Peter’s Basilica or New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. To her Catholic friends and boosters, the composition—a bright and exuberant romp through various jazz styles, along with some pop-rock and funk tinges—seemed the perfect liturgy for a new post–Vatican II Catholicism, an ebullient departure from stiff, musty Eurocentrism. But many clerics Williams approached expressed serious reservations. Church leaders in both Rome and New York repeatedly offered to stage recitals of the piece, but declined to accept it as a setting for the Mass. Doggedly undeterred, Williams approached New York’s Cardinal Terrence Cooke (she would later recount chasing him across the campus of Fordham University), who assented, hoping such a move could help draw young people back to the church. In February 1975, “Mary Lou’s Mass” was finally celebrated, and Williams left St. Patrick’s in raptures.

This breakthrough did not, however, mark the dawn of a new era. Williams’s repeated attempts to have her composition performed as a Mass in the Vatican were unsuccessful—and thirty-seven years later jazz remains, at the very best, on the periphery of liturgical music in America. This fact needs some explaining, because, as Williams always insisted, jazz is the only serious art form created exclusively in America. And it is indeed serious art; the highest achievements of jazz belong to the first tier of great Western music. So why hasn’t jazz found a more central place in the liturgical life of the Catholic Church in America?

Read the whole story (which includes video and audio links to performances and interviews) right here.

The past week has seen two new decisions in the fight over the HHS contraception mandate.  Interestingly, both involved motions for preliminary injunctions by for-profit commercial enterprises.  Likelihood of success on the merits of the claims is a central inquiry when courts consider a request for a preliminary injunction and so courts’ decisions to grant or deny those motions provide a useful window into judges’ thinking about the lawsuits.  In these two very similar cases, the two federal district courts reached seemingly diametrically opposed conclusions about the mandate’s likely legality, one court granting the motion for a preliminary injunction and the other denying it.  On closer analysis, however, the two opinions are less far apart than they initially seem.  A few thoughts after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The General Synod of the Church of England rejected a proposal to permit women to serve as bishops. In order to pass, a 2/3 majority vote was required in all three houses: the house of bishops, of clergy, and of laity. The measure passed easily in the first two, and was approved 132-74 in the house of laity, falling just 6 votes shy for 64%. (One wonders how the Supreme Governor of the C of E, Queen Elizabeth, feels about this exclusion of women from the episcopacy. I suspect she is not amused.)

Both the outgoing and the incoming Archbishops of Canterbury spoke in favor the measure, along with 72.6% of the synod delegates. Overall, 74% of members of the Church approve women bishops. Strikingly, the house of bishops voted 44-3 in favor (with 2 abstentions.) According to the Guardian, the house of bishops will convene an emergency session to consider ways to rescue the measure.

Arguably, the proposal was flawed. In an attempt to foster passage, a compromise clause was added that would allow parishes who did not wish to be led by a woman bishop to be answerable to a male bishop instead. The Church has ordained women priests since 1994, but traditionalists have been able to basically ignore them, finding more congenial parishes in which to worship, and the “opt-out” provision would allow them to continue to avoid female leadership.

The tradionalists’ concerns include these:

Consecrating (if that is the correct term in that church) women bishops would mean that traditionalists would doubt the validity of the ordination of priests ordained by women bishops, which strikes me as an odd echo of the Donatist controversy.

Anglo-Catholics also worry that having women bishops would endanger reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. Last I knew–and please do correct me if I’m off-base here–Anglican orders are considered invalid, or at best in a limbo-ish state of doubtful validity, by Rome. So, gosh, thanks for trying to play by Roman rules, but the Vatican doesn’t recognize Anglican clergy anyway, male or female. And of course Anglicans who dislike female leadership are always welcome in the Anglican ordinariate, where something like 60 clergy and 900 C of E members have joined up so far.

Some opponents of women bishops argue that they want to know that their bishop agrees with them that women are unworthy to lead. However, the vote in the house of bishops today should reveal to them that they cannot be assured of that now.

And the other side had issues, too: some supporters of women bishops didn’t care for the proposal either, since it seems to make women bishops second-class bishops because of the “opt-out” provision for dissenting parishes, while no male bishops are subject to that provision.

Given the strong support for the measure from church members and all the ordained, it seems possible that today’s defeat will lead to reintroduction of new legislation with less allowance for those who oppose women bishops, not more. After all, lay delegates are elected, and these are clearly out of step with the laity they represent. We’ll see.

And a final thought: some believe that Church unity requires yielding to the voices of the most conservative. In fact, today’s vote reveals that Church unity is a trickier beast. Today the minority against women bishops set themselves against most laity, clergy and bishops in their own church, and reinscribed a division within the worldwide Communion. 23 women are presently serving as bishops in the Anglican Communion worldwide, including Episcopal Church (USA) presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The most recently elected is Bishop Ellina Wamukoa of Swaziland. It is a sad day for those of us who rejoice at women’s leadership in the Christian churches, but I cannot believe that this is the end of the line for the question of women bishops in the Church of England.

Fifty years ago today, Yves Congar wrote these words in the journal that he was keeping during the newly-opened Second Vatican Council. (Congar’s “My Journal of the Council” has recently been published in English translation by Liturgical Press).

His astonished exclamation concerned the fact that 62% of the Bishops gathered in Council had voted against the draft document “On the Sources of Revelation.” However, according to the Council’s rules, it required a two-thirds negative vote to remand the document back to committee. Then, with his sanctified common sense, Pope John intervened, reconstituted the committee, now to be headed jointly by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bea, and commissioned them to produce a new document.

I had just begun theological studies in Rome, living at Collegio Capranica (founded by Cardinal Capranica 100 years before Trent). The fourth theologians from the College, who were working at the Council as assistants, broke the electrifying news at dinner (even before Xavier Rynne could get to a phone). We all sensed that it marked a historic turning point.

What emerged from the Council was one of its most important documents, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, “Dei Verbum.” The young Joseph Ratzinger had an important role in  helping to articulate the more “personalist” understanding of God’s revelation that characterizes the document.

I think that “Dei Verbum” has been relatively neglected since the Council — more attention (and polemics) being lavished on the other three constitutions; but, to my mind, it is the foundational document. And, if we hope to receive the Council with requisite fulness, it is the place to start — fifty years later.

To carry forward the theme addressed in a couple of recent threads, I offer a translation of an essay by Fr. Yves Congar published fifty years ago–plus ça change… It doesn’t exactly speak to the precise way in which many people are posing the issue here, but there’s a good deal of wisdom in it.

UPDATE:  I have corrected the error pointed out below and inserted page-numbers.

The Israel Defense Forces do not target civilians. Hamas targets Israel. And yet…

Number of Israelis killed by fire from Gaza between January 1st 2012 and November 11th 2012: 1
(Source: Wikipedia)

Number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli fire during the same period: 78
(Source: United Nations)

Number of Israelis killed by fire from Gaza, November 13th-19th 2012: 3
(Source: press reports)

Number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli fire, November 13th-19th: 95
(Source: IDF) …

Total number of Israelis killed by rocket, mortar or anti-tank fire from Gaza since 2006: 47
(Source: Wikipedia. This is disputed; another source says 26)

Number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli fire from April 1st 2006 to July 21st 2012: 2,879
(Source: United Nations)

The whole tragically long list is at The Economist.

As Paul Ryan jockeys for position in the already-crowded 2016 GOP presidential starting gate, he may want to read this Catholic News Service story to help him avoid the CST pitfalls and pratfalls of the last campaign:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Good health is a benefit that needs to be defended and guaranteed for all people, not just for those who can afford it, Pope Benedict XVI told hundreds of health care workers.

The new evangelization is needed in the health field, especially during the current economic crisis “that is cutting resources for safeguarding health,” he said Nov. 17, addressing participants at a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry.

Hospitals and other facilities “must rethink their particular role in order to avoid having health become a simple ‘commodity,’ subordinate to the laws of the market, and, therefore, a good reserved to a few, rather than a universal good to be guaranteed and defended,” he said.

Meanwhile, the USCCB as a whole couldn’t say anything coherent about CST and the economy last week, but Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., and Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairs of the bishops’ committees on domestic and international issues, were able to state the obvious in a letter to every congressional representative:

“In developing frameworks for future budgets, Congress should not rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons,” they wrote.

From my RNS story:

“In budget deficit efforts, there has always been a bipartisan consensus to exempt programs for the most vulnerable and instead to call for shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly,” Blaire and Pates wrote.

“To achieve savings, policy makers should consider cutting nuclear weapons programs, direct agricultural subsidies, and other unnecessary spending.”

The bishops say the “important goal” of addressing long-term deficits is necessary, but must not be achieved “at the expense of the dignity of poor and vulnerable people at home and abroad.”

They cite Pope Benedict XVI’s warning against the “downsizing of social security systems,” and they frame their appeal in terms of “traditional principles and values.”

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Now featured at the website, the Commonweal editors on the events in Gaza:

With Israel again bombarding Gaza and gathering troops for another potentially devastating incursion into the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave, it is tempting to think that nothing really changes in the Middle East, and especially in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But to think that would be a mistake—especially for friends of Israel.

It is not clear what precipitated this latest confrontation. There is no question that rocket attacks from Gaza increased dramatically in recent months, or that some kind of Israeli response was inevitable. …

Knowledgeable observers think neither Hamas nor Israel wants to reenact the carnage of Operation Cast Lead four years ago. That wrenching assault resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Only thirteen Israelis were killed. If Hamas wants to avoid repeating such a calamity, why would it provoke Israel in this manner? One theory is that a show of military bravado would enhance its status across the new political landscape of the Arab world, especially in comparison with its more moderate Palestinian rival, Fatah. A demonstration of robust military capability—some rockets provided by Iran can now reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem—might also reinvigorate support among Gaza’s beleaguered and disgruntled population. Hamas also counts on the fact that Israel has no interest in re-occupying Gaza with its 1.6 million Palestinians. Nor is it in Israel’s interest to repeat its brutal three-week 2008–09 siege. Operation Cast Lead was seen by many in the international community as disproportionate if not immoral—some claim Israel committed war crimes—and contributed significantly to the growing isolation of the Jewish state.

Read the whole thing here.

The cover of the November 5 edition of the Weekly Standard:

And the November 19 edition:

In last Friday’s edition of the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead*, reporter Erik Burgess advanced the story of Lennon Cihak, the Barnesville MN teenager denied the sacrament of confirmation by his pastor, Fr. Gary LaMoine of Assumption Parish, for Cihak’s public support of same-sex civil marriage.  Burgess reported, among other things, that:

• a classmate of Cihak’s also was denied confirmation, and for the same reason;
• in an open letter to the parish, Fr. LaMoine maintained that Cihak voluntarily chose not to seek confirmation; however,
• Fr. LaMoine told a reporter that he would not have confirmed Cihak anyway;
• Fr. LaMoine apparently became aware of the issue because “My secretary Googled his name“; and,
• both Bishop Hoeppner and diocesan spokesman Msgr. David Baumgartner remained unavailable for comment.

Here at dotCommonweal we’ve had a lively and far-ranging conversation about this situation (see here and here) and what it says (or doesn’t say) about the wider Church.  In addition to reading those threads (thanks to all the commenters!), I took some time over the weekend to check out Lennon Cihak’s Tumbler and Twitter feeds.  It helped disabuse me of an overly simplified notion of “parallel churches”—if only because I’m not sure which church would have room for a music-making, gay-marriage-endorsing, chocolate-milk-drinking, abortion-opposing, Romney-supporting, Obamacare-hating, part-time grocery-store worker with an (appropriately) adolescent sense of humor, who roots for his high school’s football team and loves his grandma.  (I’m also not sure whether he’d be interested in joining either of those “parallel churches”.)

All of which is to say that Lennon Cihak reminds me of so many 17 year olds:  fearfully and wonderfully made, bursting with surprises and contradictions, full to the brim with possibilities.  He also reminds me that one of the things I’ve always loved about the Catholic Church is the way it’s a church for people who otherwise have nothing in common—other than their love of God and the nourishment they find in the sacraments.

*Thanks to John Hayes for linking to this article in one of the threads, and to Eric Buygis for his post on this topic.

Very Serious People have noticed the demise of Twinkies:

The Twinkie Manifesto informs us (me) that Twinkies sponsored “The Howdy Doody Show.” Didn’t know that!

Paul Krugman quickly pivots to 1950s tax rates for top earners (90%) explaining why they too had to lunch on twinkies and ate from brown paper bags.