"Seeking Sanctuary"

Several New Orleans Catholic churches celebrate their last mass before being closed by the Archdiocese on Sunday. Dina Zelden weeps as she holds her son William during the final Mass at St. Henry's Church.

From Bruce Nolan Times-Picayune:

A month after parishioners in two Uptown Catholic parishes seized their churches to forestall their closure, their occupations have settled into steady, volunteer-organized rhythms of care and vigilance that appear to have kept both buildings occupied without a break.

After four weeks, parishioners and sympathizers still sit quietly in around-the-clock shifts at St. Henry Catholic Church, and less than a mile away, at Our Lady of Good Counsel.

It is a stalemate of sorts: Parishioners have vowed to occupy both churches until they can appeal their fate to whomever succeeds Archbishop Alfred Hughes. He closed both parishes Oct. 26 as part of a major reorganization of Catholic worship after Hurricane Katrina.
....

At both churches, up to 100 parishioners still gather each Sunday to say the rosary together without benefit of a priest. At St. Henry's last week most, but not all, said they attended Mass somewhere else in addition to coming to church there.

Together again, parishioners gather around the Sunday comforts of coffee and doughnuts. They greet and encourage each other. Their lay leaders brief them on organizational details.
....

At St. Henry, a 152-year-old parish of about 325 families, a core group of church-sitters numbers 80 or more, including some who volunteer several times a week to sit overnight, or through four-hour daytime shifts, said Ann Farmer, one of two volunteer coordinators.

At Good Counsel, parishioner Mary Alice Sirkis, whose grandparents were parishioners, and whose grandfather helped build either the church or the accompanying school, said that parish, with about 400 families, has 70 volunteers so far.

Those numbers would certainly make for a viable parish in the Episcopal Church, but with their priest shortage, I presume that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans has trouble staffing the churches, so they decided to combine three parishes into one.

I have a great love for old churches, perhaps too much love for them, for they are just buildings, and I like to see them used for their original purpose. However, I realize that's not always possible.

In the solitude, some say history, legacy and memory bear down on them. "I find when I'm in church, I don't feel I'm alone," Sirkis said. "I'm with my grandmother again."
....

At St. Henry, Cynthia Robidoux lays her air mattress in front of a side altar honoring the mother of Christ.

"The Mary Suite, she calls it," said Hagardorn, her husband.
....

The archdiocese's position is that the parishes are closed; priests of the archdiocese are not permitted to minister in those churches. Instead, parishioners of both communities are encouraged to join and help establish a new Catholic community called Good Shepherd Parish at nearby St. Stephen's Church.

I offer my prayers and support that the parishioners and the archdiocese may come to a peaceful agreement on the future of the two parishes.

The Times-Picayune is fortunate to have Bruce Nolan, an excellent religion reporter, who is diligent in his background research and, unlike many in the media, still does nuance, which has mostly gone out of favor.

Other Names Meme

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names): Anne Joseph
2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): Lawrence René
3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name): Bujune
4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal): Blue Cat
5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live): Florence Thibodaux
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning): The Green Wine (Yuk!)
7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): Juer
8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie): Pecan Praline Snackwell
9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name): Diana Rienzi
10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on): Ginger Laharpe

The Gansta name is really lame. The porn name is the best. I like the rock star name, too.

H/T to Fran.

Lieberman Sees The Light

From Yahoo News:

HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman took another step Tuesday toward mending his relationship with Democrats, saying that Barack Obama's actions since winning the presidency have been "just about perfect."

"Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration," Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford.

Whoops! Obama actions are "just about perfect" now, and yet Joe spent much of the campaign trashing him. Well then, Joe made a grave miscalculation. You might even call it a huge mistake. Or was he in a fog? Whatever. He's seen the light now.

Lieberman said he believes the rift between himself and the party stemmed mainly from his support of President Bush's policy in Iraq and will close as that becomes less of an issue.

Sure, Joe. That's all it is. Your ugly words about Obama have nothing to do with the ill will that you experience now. You may be right about the majority of your Democratic colleagues in the Senate, but not for many of us outside of the Senate. We think what you did was shameful. And now we're to believe you when you say that Obama's actions since the election which, by the way, he won, despite your claims that he was not up to the job, are "just about perfect". No, Joe. I don't think so.

H/T to Jane R.

Into The Belly Of The Walmart Beast

For the sake of a $2.00 curtain rod for my granddaughter's bedroom window, I went to Walmart. Grandpère, the Walmart shopper in the family, bought the wrong size rod, so I went to change it and get the right size. I went to Customer Service where I felt great satisfaction in getting $3.70 back from Walmart.

I found the right size rod, picked up a bottle of cheap make-up, which seems to be the only brand to which I am not allergic, and headed to checkout. I tried the garden section, where, if the gods smile on me, the line is not too long. Today, the gods were angry, and it was long. I went to the regular checkout, stood in one line for a few minutes, went to another line, saw that it was self-checkout, which never works for me, and that one woman had a full to overflowing buggy, returned to the garden section and waited with my two items. The gentleman in front of me, with a full buggy, offered to let me go ahead of him - an angel in disguise, surely. I check out, and I'm outta there.

All the while I'm waiting, I'm in a state of near panic, debating with myself whether I will put the two items on a shelf and get the hell out of there or wait it out. What a terrible place.

UPDATE: Thanks to David G. for the picture. David, this is a keeper, because I write a post nearly every time I go to Walmart, and I'm sure that I will use it again.

Miami Judge Rules Ban On Gay Adoption Unconstitutional

From U. S. News:

A 1977 Florida state law that bans gay individuals from adopting has received its biggest challenge thus far: Foster father Frank Martin Gill won his suit to adopt two brothers he has been fostering since 2004.

In her decision this morning, Miami Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman ruled that there was no "rational basis" to prevent the children from being adopted. The case, which marks the first time that a gay adoption case has been taken before a trial court in Florida, seems likely to go before the Florida Supreme Court, which could overturn the ban.

Although several states have de facto bans against gay couples adopting and an unknown number of conservative-leaning courts make it virtually impossible, Florida is the only state that prohibits gay individuals from adopting. But it allows them to be foster parents. That means that when Gill wanted to adopt the two boys he'd fostered for four years, ages 4 and 8, he couldn't, leaving the brothers as official wards of the state.

This is excellent news. Of course, there will be appeals, and we don't know what the result will be in the end, but for now we can rejoice with Frank Gill and the boys.

Here's the article on the clash of the experts during the trial from the Miami Herald.

When Mary Clara Gets Fired Up

In the comments to this post:

Mary Clara said...

I'm with JohnieB: I'm waiting for the war crimes trials and the treason trials and the chance to see the Bushies led away in orange jumpsuits and leg irons. Of course, I also think people who voted for Bush and Cheney (esp. in 2004, when the evidence was in)should have to pay a penalty too. Maybe they could be required to subsidize the care and support of one injured US veteran of the war for the rest of his life, or pay reparations and support to an Iraqi family displaced, traumatized and impoverished by the bloody war, or spend six months in NOLA rebuilding ruined houses.

I think Grandpere may be right. Obama didn't win by a landslide, and in fact didn't even get a majority of white votes (even here in heavily Democratic Maryland, which really shocked me). Yet Andrew Kohut reported a week or so ago that according to his polling, about two-thirds of the population are now optimistic that Obama will be able to handle the problems ahead and think that things will get better! I think that's amazing.

I think he is going to govern from the center and pull in everybody who can help come up with solutions. The situation is so drastic that it provides an opportunity to get out of fixed patterns of thinking and ideologies that have been blinding people to what is really going on. The people he appointed today as his economic advisers don't seem to be ideologues; they are just very smart and very seasoned people, with a remarkable range of experience to bring to their task. It will be difficult to adjust to having people of that sort running the government, just as it is a shock to have a President (-elect) who can speak in complete, grammatical sentences and complete a thought, even when responding to questions at a press conference.

People are going to get behind the new President (even before he is sworn in) because they know their own livelihoods and future financial security may depend upon his being able to lead us out of this mess. Even the officials of the outgoing maladministration know that their own asses are on the line. Forget about a 'legacy' (it's way too late for that), it's about whether their own stock holdings and other assets are going to become worthless. The good thing about this is that the right-wing operatives who dogged the Clintons, and who would surely like to bring Obama down with their slime machine, are not likely to succeed. People are going to have other things on their minds besides whatever crap the neocons can invent or insinuate about him.

And we all said, "Amen".

Our Fall Colors Arrive!

 

I know. I know. We're way behind everyone else. Some years, we don't have fall colors at all. These are crepe myrtle trees, and Grandpère and I agree that we have never seen our crepe myrtles this colorful, except when they were in bloom, in the 26 years we have lived in our house. This is an event, an alignment of the moon and the stars or, whatever. We don't know what caused this to happen.

 

That's Tara across the street, or, if you prefer, Barbie's House of Dreams, as the young girls called the place. It's the grandest house on the block. You don't get the full effect with the trees in the way.

 

The leaves of the tree in the back yard turned yellow, and it is as nothing compared to the brilliance of the colors in the front yard.

For your viewing pleasure.

A Conversation - Sort Of

Grandpère to me: "I think some of the people who were most vocal against Obama are beginning to reconsider."

Me to Grandpère in a rather loud voice: "Yes! The assholes who were calling Obama a Muslim and a socialist, and saying that Al Sharpton would be in the Cabinet are beginning to reconsider!"

Doesn't matter that we told them so. Their eyes are opened! They see the light! All is now right with the world.

That's what I said, uncensored, without asterisks, so that's how I wrote it. Sorry if I offend anyone.

Separate But Equal?

From Reuters:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Conservatives who have abandoned the U.S. Episcopal Church by the thousands in recent years are trying to form a separate-but-equal church, a move that could leave two branches of Anglicanism on American soil.
....

Minns, a former Episcopalian elevated to bishop by the Church of Nigeria and leader of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, said the new province could count on 100,000 people as its average weekly attendance. The Episcopal Church says its average weekly attendance is about 727,000.

BabyBlue objects to the phrase "separate-but-equal" and calls it offensive. I left this comment at BB's post:

With respect to equality under the law, "separate but equal" does not seem workable, because it turns out that separate is never really equal. I agree that the phrase is loaded, but in reference to the divisions in [the] Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, I can't quite see wherein lies the offense. Will the use of the phrase somehow work to injure the cause of those who want to separate? I can't see how, but I'm open to having the matter explained.

And then, from the Episcopal Café:

An article by Michael Conlon for Reuters details the GAFCON backed plan to create an alternative or parallel Anglican province in the United States. The article has a number of quotes by Bishop Minns of Nigeria and claims that the Communion is likely to recognize his efforts to create this new structure. Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of actual balanced reporting in the article.

I noted that much of the information in the article seems to come from Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), one of the groups seeking to separate from the Episcopal Church, who is hardly unbiased.

In a comment to the post at the Episcopal Café, Fr. Terry Martin says:

It is also worth noting that the 100,000 number includes other groups, like the REC, who are not part of the Communion, and are not likely to become part of the Communion any time soon.

The intention seems to be to suggest that 100,000 of their claimed members were previously part of TEC, which is simply not true. We don't have that number, although I would guess that it is closer to a couple of thousand, at best.

Reporting on church affairs seems to be quite a challenge, unless the article is a straightforward news story. Nuance and background are vital to religion stories, especially those which involve conflict within and amongst churches

H/T to Thinking Anglicans.

UPDATE: In a similar vein, please read Tobias' post, "Reminder About the Communion" at In a Godward Direction:

As the Duncanian coalition of former Episcopalians and never-were Episcopalians coalesces or congeals into form in a few weeks, they appear to remain hopeful that whatever they are will be recognized as a new Province of the Anglican Communion.

This is unlikely, for two reasons.

Continued over there.

Fred Astaire - "Dancing Cheek To Cheek"

Since you liked Fred's last video, here's Fred and Ginger. He hits the high notes in this one. Ginger's feathery dress is a touch of genius by the costume designer. If this video doesn't start your week right, then nothing will.