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Keeping Count:
American troops have died in Iraq since March 20, 2003. Our prayers are with them and their families.
I'm currently looking for a casuality counter for Afghanistan but haven't found one. Email me if you know of one.
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May 6th, 2010
We’re in Vancouver for Nancy’s annual convention. I’ll write more about that later, but we went into a coffee shop and I saw this. Couldn’t resist. When asked the barista insisted that it meant “homogenized milk. I suspect he was just looking for a date.
By the way, if you’re interested, the cafe was Moonpennies Coffee and Fine Foods.
Posted in Chuckling | No Comments »
April 11th, 2010
The appears to be the scandal that won’t go away, mostly because the Catholic Church can’t seem to get it right. Recent revelations appear to implicate Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) in a scandal to cover up allegations of a pedophile priest, Rev. Peter Hullermann in 1980. You can read the New York Times article for background.
You would expect the Vatican to investigate these allegations, and at the very least issues a “no comment” and hope it blows over. You’d be wrong. On Good Friday, the Pope’s preacher (Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Conv) likened criticism of the Pope to antisemitism, angering both Jews and survivors of sexual abuse. Not to be outdone, on Easter Sunday Cardinal Angelo Sodano compared the publicity on this to gossip. Hard to believe these guys are in charge of anything let alone the Catholic Church.
In the last few days a story has come out about the Diocese of Oakland, Bishop Cummins, and and Fr. Stephen Kiesle. In the early 1980s Fr. Kiesle was convicted of abusing two boys and was removed from ministry. Bishop Cummins wrote to Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) and asked that Fr. Kiesle be laicized, or removed from the priesthood. In fairness there was no attempt by anyone to have Fr. Kiesle returned to ministry. When Cardinal Ratzinger did write, he cautioned against laicizing Fr. Kiesle as it might be a source of scandal to the people of Oakland. Amazingly having a priest abuse boys isn’t scandalous in the Pope’s eyes. The letter goes to to ask Bishop Cummins to provide “as much paternal care as possible.” Did anyone else notice that the Pope never asked about the victims?
This is an issue that is somewhat personal for me. While I was never abused by anyone, I know at least two friends who were sexually abused by priests. I have to believe there were more and I just don’t know about it. I spent most of my early 20s in Boston as a seminarian of the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers; that was in the early 1980s.
I would later find out that I was in the middle of a great deal of abuse, most of which I was to find out about 20 years later. When the Boston Globe started publishing articles in early 2002 I was astounded at how much was happening literally under my nose.
Much of the information I’m discussing now comes from a web page called Bishop Accountability. It’s an amazing page and I’m grateful for all the work it’s taken to keep track of all this.
The one priest I knew about was Fr. Richard Ahern CSS. I was a seminarian when I learned that at Sacred Heart Parish in Feeding Hills he abused several boys. He was pulled out of the parish and sent for treatment at the House of Affirmation in Whitinsville, MA. While there he confessed to the abuse and was arrested. He died on February 1, 2001. I never really liked him and was actually a little surprised when his crimes came to light. Most abusers are charming people who lure their victims; he always struck me as a lazy guy who made a nice living without having to work too hard. I don’t think anyone is happy with how his case was treated (and it still mystifies me why a 20 year old seminarian wasn’t warned about him). Before 1984 the Stigmatines knew about it but didn’t remove him. That year, according to my memory, his abuse was so egregious that he was sent to the House of Affirmation. It was only when he was there and told his story to the therapist he was arrested and the Stigmatines could no longer hide him. I don’t remember the details but they knew they couldn’t send him back to a parish so they gave him an internal job in the community where he wouldn’t have any contact with children. I also remember talk of how to support him; there was also talk of money being paid out to the victims but that always sounded like “hush money” to me. I don’t think they ever recognized how damage he did nor did they see the long term effects of abuse on the victims.
Probably one of the most infamous cases was Fr. Paul Shanley. He wasn’t a Stigmatine, but when I lived in the Stigmatine House of Studies in the early 1980s, Paul was the associate priest at the church next door, St. John the Evangelist in Newton. It was a French parish, and in French it was called St. Jean L’Evangelist. We called it St. Jean and used the American pronunciation. When I first met Paul I couldn’t figure out why an Irishman like Paul was assigned to a French parish, and why he wasn’t a pastor. He explained to me that he had a fight with Cardinal Humberto Medeiros and was told he’d never be pastor. That was true, as far as it goes, but Paul didn’t tell me that the fight was over Paul’s abuse of teenage boys. When Cardinal Meideros died in 1983 and the pastor of St. Jean’s died shortly after, Cardinal Bernard Law appointed Paul as pastor of St. Jean’s. By that time I was gone and that was where most of the abuse occurred. I taught CCD (Sunday School) at St. Jean’s and leaned that Paul did most of his damage to students of the school who were sent to him for disciplinary reasons. It was generally my policy to take care of disciplinary stuff in the classroom and I don’t remember sending anyone to Paul but I was grateful to see that none of my students were Paul’s victims. I’m still angry that Paul and Cardinal Meideros conspired to lie to me (and the parish) over why he was assigned to St. Jean’s. Paul was convicted in 2005 and is still in prison.
At some point the Catholic Church needs to find a way to deal with this and it will be a hard road. But we won’t start of this journey as long as we’re still more concerned with protecting the clergy than protecting our children.
Posted in Grieving, Praying, Ranting | No Comments »
April 5th, 2010
In a previous post I talked about a case that is incredibly polarizing. The news since that post is equally polarizing. The latest court ruling favors Fred Phelps and his church. It’s on hold until the Supreme Court hears the case next term, but Matt’s father Albert has been handed a bill for $16,510 to pay to the defendant, Fred Phelps.
From what I’ve been able to read, this was the order of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. They argue that if you bring a civil suit against someone and lose, you’re responsible for their legal costs. In the abstract that makes sense; it should cut down on frivolous lawsuits and protect defendants from being bankrupted. It should deter someone with financial means to destroy someone who lacks financial means. But I find it puzzling that the 4th Circuit is demanding payment while the case is still on appeal.
Mr. Snyder makes a good case that he cannot afford the legal bill, but it’s unlikely that he’ll actually have to pay it.
- If he ultimately wins the case he’ll receive damages from Fred Phelps much in excess of this amount.
- You can click on Matt’s memorial web page and send a donation
- Bill O’Reilly, who is somebody I’m normally contemptuous of, has promised to pay the bill. It’s rare that I applaud Bill, but I do this time.
I’ll keep you posted.
Posted in Grieving, Praying, Ranting, Remembering | No Comments »
March 31st, 2010
Tomorrow, April 1st, is the day every 10 years where we are counted. The US Constitution (Article 1 Section2) mandates that an “Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.” The first census was completed in 1790 and we’ve done it every 10 years since.
This year we all received a form in the mail that we fill out and mail back, but it wasn’t always like that. It used to be that the Census Department hired people to go door to door and fill out a form. The questions have changed and some of the questions have led to funny answers. In my family the French spelling of last names drove some of the census workers crazy and we had some great misspellings. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Mailloux and is pronounced “My You.” In different places it was spelled “Mayhew” and (my favorite) “Mayo.”
But the funniest notation I found was in the 1920 Census for Gardner, Massachusetts, Supervisor’s District 3, Enumeration District 73, Sheets 6B and 7A. Here is where the census worker (Lucie Laurence) came to the French Catholic Church, Holy Rosary. When Lucie got to the rectory where the priests live, she listed the pastor as head of the household. That makes sense. But the other priests were listed as “servants.” Then Lucie went to the convent. Again, the mother superior was listed as head of the household, but the other nuns were listed as inmates. Clearly she wasn’t Catholic.
You can look it up yourself. Census records are made public after 73 years. The form you filled out this year will be public record in 2083.
Posted in Chuckling | No Comments »
March 29th, 2010
A week and a half ago my Toyota Prius turned 4 years old. For the number geeks among us, as of that day I had 98,874 miles on the odometer. That means in the last year I put 20,238 miles on it, down from previous years (and it means the 4 year average was 24,718). In January 2009 my territory at hospice changed and that led to the decrease in my mileage.
The more pressing issue, according to several friends of mine, is the safety of the car. There have been hundreds of stories about gas pedals that got stuck and there has been some concern. I’m not one of them. My Prius was recalled where they put in something that will prevent the floormat from sliding forward and I’m satisfied with that. I think this is part of a larger issue of assessing risk that I addressed in a previous post.
Sometime tomorrow I expect to pass 100,000 miles and have no plans to get rid of it.
Posted in Celebrating | No Comments »
March 13th, 2010
The Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case of Snyder v. Phelps next year. It’s going to be a lightning rod case when it’s heard next fall, and for me it’s a fascinating examination of free speech, hate speech and the limits of protest. Here are the facts of the case:
Matthew Snyder was a 20 year old marine who died in combat in Iraq in 2006. His body was returned and his funeral was held at St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Maryland. Outside his church Fred Phelps and other members of his Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the church with signs that claimed Matt’s death was the result of God’s punishment against the United States for permitting (among other things) homosexuality.
Matt’s father, Albert, filed suit in June of 2006 against Fred Phelps (and others). In 2007 a jury awarded Mr. Snyder $10.9 million. Mr. Phelps appealed and in 2008 the verdict was overturned claiming that while Phelps is offensive, his speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. Last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case next year.
This raises several interesting issues, though perhaps not the ones you may think. It goes without saying that Fred Phelps and the other protesters are offensive to an incredible degree. He believes that homosexuals, the Catholic Church, jews, and others are depraved and condemned by God. Because the United States tolerates this, God is expressing his wrath through natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), terrorist events (9/11), and battle casualties (Iraq and Afghanistan).
And while Phelp’s behavior is offensive, that is not cause for a lawsuit. Simply put, nobody has the right to not be offended; the first amendment protects your right to be offensive. But as we all know, there are limits on free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater unless it really is on fire. Hate speech is not protected (e.g. leaving a noose on a tree branch).
Neither is defamation. Albert Snyder claimed he was defamed because Phelp’s signs said (among other things) Albert “taught him how to support the largest pedophile machine in the history of the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity.” He also claimed invasion of privacy (that Phelps and the other protesters “intruded on seclusion”). The defamation charge was dropped and it went to trial on the charges of intrusion on seclusion and intentional affliction of emotional distress. As I said, the jury found for the plaintiff and awarded damages of almost $11 million.
On appeal it was decided that Phelp’s right to free speech outweighs Snyder’s intrusion on seclusion and intentional affliction of emotional abuse. That is the issue the Supreme Court will take up next year.
It’s a tough case. I’m normally a fundamentalist when it comes to freedom of speech. I don’t think we are protected from hearing things we don’t want to hear and we’re not protected from getting our feelings hurt. What happened to the Snyder family, though, goes way beyond hurt feelings. Having to bury a child (no matter how old) is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. Seeing Fred Phelps and others using Matt’s funeral as a platform to push his agenda of hate is beyond painful.
But does it rise to level of limiting free speech? It’s certainly sinful and horrible, and I suspect that when Fred Phelps dies he’s not going to like the all loving God any more than he likes the rest of us. But I have to admit that part of me thinks we would do better by ignoring Fred and the other hate mongers; in a sense telling him that he has the right to say what he wants, but we have the right not to listen to it.
In any case, one nice thing that came out of this is that President Bush signed into law that prohibits this kind of protest. The Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act makes it a crime to protest within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery.
We’ll see how this turns out.
Posted in Praying, Ranting | 1 Comment »
March 7th, 2010
In my previous Justice Chronicles post I talked about the ladder of tzedakah. I’ve been thinking about this ladder and wonder if we need to rethink this. I take nothing away from the brilliance of Moses Maimonides, but he wrote nearly 900 years ago and built his ladder on one very specific theme. He believed that giving charity (or doing justice) becomes more altruistic as the receiver is not able to repay, either because they don’t have the means or don’t know the giver.
I still hold to the validity of the highest rung (enabling the recipient to become self reliant), but I’m not so certain of the 7th rung (giving when neither party knows the others identity). In the last few years we’ve read about and seen devastating tragedies with Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and most recently earthquakes in Haiti and Chile and we Americans have responded generously. Catholic Relief Services has already raised $90,000,000 for Haiti, and it’s all 7th rung tzedakah. None of us who gave know who will benefit, and nobody who benefits will know us.
But at the end of the day, is that a good thing? In the 12th century it was fairly difficult to be anonymous. Most people lived in small villages and didn’t travel much. If you wanted to give to someone without knowing who, and without them knowing you, you needed to search out a middle man. Now it’s much easier, and I think perhaps not as noble. The sheer volume of money that goes to Haiti, Chile, etc. shows how generous Americans are, but it also shows that it’s easy to write a check or call a toll free number and know we are doing good.
But what about tzedakah that needs to happen close to home? Can we be as generous and give while looking at someone in the eye? Several years ago I met a man from St. Eulalia Catholic Church in Winchester, Massachusetts. A few years before that he attended an event where the speaker was Mother Teresa. He was so impressed with her talk that he came up to her and gave her a $50 bill and said: “Give this to the poor.” She gave him the bill back and said: “No, you give this to the poor. Find someone who needs it and give it to him.” As he told me the story he explained that while it was hard to find someone in Winchester, Massachusetts who was poor, he was on a mission. He eventually found someone to give the money to, and it transformed him to actually meet someone who needed what he had.
I don’t normally do New Years’ resolutions, but last year I made one that I still hold to: I will not avoid eye contact with people who stand at intersections and ask for money. You know what I’m talking about: they hold signs that say “Please help. God bless,” or “Will work for food.” Admit it, you’ve hoped that the traffic light would work in your favor and you wouldn’t have the uncomfortable few minutes when you’re only separated by the car window. Most people don’t give them money because “they’ll just use it for booze or drugs.”
Is that true? Maybe it is, but maybe it’s because we don’t want to do level 3 (giving after being asked). Maybe it’s because giving to someone who asks is, on some level, creating a relationship that we don’t want to create. I’ll confess that I keep a $5 bill handy to give to these folks and in return I ask them to pray for me. Nobody has ever refused my request. OK, maybe they don’t have any intention to pray for me, and maybe they’ll just use the money to make themselves worse, but does that make my tzedakah worse or wasteful? If the only good that happened out of this encounter is that two strangers made eye contact, is that a bad thing?
Maybe it advances the cause of tzedakah.
Posted in Justice Chronicles, Praying, Thinking | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
I recently read a book about everyday finances called Stop Getting Ripped Off: Why Consumers Get Screwed, and How You Can Always Get a Fair Deal by Bob Sullivan that has me thinking. The premise of the book is that many of us don’t know much about simple arithmetic and we get ripped off by people who take advantage of that. I’m calling this series “The Money Chronicles” in the hopes that this will (like the Justice Chronicles) will become a recurring theme.
Virtually everyone I know borrows money in some form, be it a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card. Very few people are going to let you use their money for free, and it makes sense to charge interest. If you borrow $100.00 at 10% interest and pay it back in a year, you’ll pay $110. Easy, right?
Well… It is, but like most debt it isn’t that clear cut. Because we’ve gotten used to phrases like “annual percentage rate” (APR), “revolving credit,” and “compounding interest,” we tend to sign up for a loan, pay the bill each month, and let somebody else do the math. In a world where everyone is virtuous that would be fine. I’m blogging about this because we don’t live in such a world and there are armies of people out there who are happy to advantage of us, and take our money.
I’m going to start with the place that most people first run into trouble: credit cards. I can’t tell you how many offers I get over the course of a year that promise me all sorts of stuff if I sign up for their card. They do everything they can to tell you that by signing this line you can enter a world of free money. Let’s see what happens with this card.
I’m going to use my current American Express bill as an example. My current balance is $1319.19, the interest rate (annual percentage rate or APR) is 15.24% and the minimum amount due is $28.00. If I pay off the entire balance (as I intend to), I pay no interest. As long as I do this, I’ll never pay a penny of interest.
But if I pay only the $28.00 and continue to pay only the minimum, and never use the card for new purchases it will take 12 years to pay it off and I’ll have ended up paying $2677.00. Better than that, if I make the payment even one day late I’ll be charged an additional $39.00 late fee.
If I spend the next 12 years paying off the card, I’ll be 61 years old when I’m done. In fairness I’ll have gotten the benefit of whatever I bought for the $1319.19, but the rest? The rest of the money ($1357.81) does nothing but make the credit card companies wealthier. And frankly, the 15.24% isn’t too bad. If my interest rate were 20%, I would need 23 years to pay it off and the total payoff amount would be $3722.00. In 23 years I’ll be 72 and will probably have no memory of what I bought in 2010.
There’s lots more, but there’s one thing I encourage you to do: buy Bob Sullivan’s book. One eye opener for me was how the credit cards use average daily balance and how you can save money by making large purchases toward the end of the month. If you do nothing else, read pages 84 to 89.
Posted in Money Chronicles, Ranting, Thinking | No Comments »
February 27th, 2010
A few years ago in my literary travels I came across Karen Armstrong. She is British, and was a nun in the 1960s. She left the convent and has done many things, but most importantly (for me) is that she is a terrific writer. I met her when she signed my copy of The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions. She is creative, inviting, and challenging. I like that.
I recently finished her latest book The Case for God. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but had not thought about blogging about it until I read the epilogue. She states something I’ve felt for a long time, as well as I’ve ever read it expressed:
We have become used to thinking that religion should provide us with information. Is there a God? How did the world come into being? But this is a modern preoccupation. Religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason. That was the role of logos [reason]. Religion’s task, closely allied to that of art, was to help us to live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously within realities for which there were no easy explanations and problems that we could not solve: mortality, pain, grief, despair, and outrage at the injustice and cruelty of life. Over the centuries people in all cultures discovered that by pushing their reasoning powers to the limit, stretching language to the end of its tether, and living as selflessly and compassionately as possible, they experienced a transcendence that enabled them to affirm their suffering with serenity and courage. Scientific rationality can tells us why we have cancer; it can even cure us of our disease. But it cannot assuage the terror, disappointment, and sorrow that come with the diagnosis, nor can it help us to die well. That is not within its competence. Religion will not work automatically, however; it requires a great deal of effort and cannot succeed if it is facile, false, idolatrous, or self-indulgent.
Frankly, I couldn’t say it any better. I find great frustration in the ways that religion gets misused these days. We use it manipulate behavior (“Do you think God is pleased with what you are doing?”), justify our actions (“God rejoices when an abortion doctor is murdered”), discriminate (“He looks like a good candidate for the job, but I worry that he doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus”), or rewrite history (“If the Bible says the world is only 6,000 years old, I don’t care about anything else: that’s what I believe”).
Too often we use faith and religion not to expand our world and increase compassion, but to exclude people we fear or justify our prejudices. That’s wrong. Our faith should not provide us an excuse to retreat into our fears, but a safe place to explore what scares us.
I pray that my faith makes me a better man; that it makes me more compassionate and understanding; that it makes my life more manageable and less fearful. I pray that my faith makes people of other religions respect and care for me, even if they don’t completely understand what I believe.
And I pray that Karen Armstrong keeps writing.
Posted in Praying, Thinking | No Comments »
February 14th, 2010
The recent events in Haiti have caused me to think a great deal about the role of justice. They suffered a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12th and thousands lost their lives. Countless others survived but are in need of basic services (food, water, shelter, etc.) and that has lead to a very public debate.
Organizations like the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services have raised millions of dollars. President Obama asked former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to spearhead a fundraising effort.
This raises lots of questions to me on the nature of justice and charity. In a previous post I spoke of medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonmides (1120-1190) and his teaching on the “ladder of tzedakah.” Tzedakah is normally translated as “charity” but it means much more. In a sense, true tzedakah is not simply a rich person giving something to a poor person; it’s an act of fairness and justice, an act that works to restore all of us to equality.
More than that, the “ladder” part tells us that there are rungs, or levels; not all tzedakah is the same. Maimonmides taught that this ladder had 8 rungs:
1. Giving begrudgingly
2. Giving less that you should, but giving it cheerfully.
3. Giving after being asked
4. Giving before being asked
5. Giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity
6. Giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know your identity
7. Giving when neither party knows the other’s identity
8. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant
For most people who are giving to the relief in Haiti, it’s really the 7th rung. That’s pretty good particularly given that the people who will benefit from these donations will never have the opportunity to give back, but I wonder if we shouldn’t think more about moving to the 8th rung.
This may be too politically sensitive to discuss directly, so let me get to this at a slant. Going back a century, I think most people are aware of the name Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). He founded United States Steel (now called USX). In building his empire he earned a phenomenal amount of money and when he retired he gave much of it away. In total, he donated approximately $350,000,000 and was instrumental in the building of over 2500 libraries. Even today the Carnegie Corporation is continuing Andrew’s vision.
Much of the work they do is 7th rung stuff. The people who fund the charity don’t know the people they help and they don’t know the donors. But when Mr. Carnegie was amassing his fortune, did he need to keep it all himself? Did his workers need to live in poverty and work in poor conditions so those of the next generation would have a library? In 1892 Carnegie broke the union that represented his workers. Had he worked with the union and given everyone a living wage, couldn’t that have been 8th rung tzedakah? Maybe Carnegie wouldn’t have been so famous, and maybe we wouldn’t have as many libraries, but workers in the late 19th and early 20th century might have had less poverty, disease, and shortened lives.
Maybe the earthquake in Haiti gives all the rest of us the opportunity to not only provide food and water, but also the tools to allow their economy to grow. Maybe this is our opportunity to make them better able to survive the next earthquake.
I entitled this “Volume 1″ in the hopes that I’ll write about justice/tzedakah on a regular basis.
Posted in Justice Chronicles, Praying, Thinking | No Comments »
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