I have a friend who does numerology in
California & she called me up one night
& said that 444 was the number of Wal-
Mart, which is 30 percent off of 666 &
we were both amazed & then I hung up
the phone & said now I remember why
we moved to Iowa.
Nathan Söderblom was born in Trönö, Sweden, in 1866 and ordained in 1893. He was chaplain at the Swedish Embassy in Paris from 1894 to 1901, and earned a doctorate in comparative religion from the Sorbonne. He then became professor of the history of religion at the University of Uppsala, and in 1914 became Archbishop of Uppsala and Primate of the Church of Sweden.
Soderblom, a Lutheran in a church that had retained the historic episcopate, valued the liturgy and devotional tradition of traditional Catholic worship, while seeing much of worth in the writings of liberal Protestant scholars. He believed it his duty to work for a united Christendom, both catholic and evangelical, and saw practical cooperation on social issues as a promising first step. During World War I, he worked tirelessly to alleviate the conditions of prisoners of war and refugees. For this and his subsequent work for Church unity and world peace, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. At Stockholm in 1925, he organized the Universal Christian Council on Life and Work. Meanwhile, a chiefly Anglican group had formed an inter-denominational Conference on Faith and Order. In 1948 the two groups merged to form the World Council of Churches. As Archbishop of Sweden, he was concerned to deepen the channels of communication between the Church and the laboring masses, and also between the Church and the intellectuals. He died 12 July 1931.
Almighty God, we bless your Name for the life and work of Nathan Söderblom, Archbishop of Uppsala, who helped to inspire the modern liturgical revival and worked tirelessly for cooperation among Christians. Inspire us by his example, that we may ever strive for the renewal of your Church in life and worship, for the glory of your Name; who with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
First off, chimps aren't "our closest primate cousin," though you'll need a sharp eye to find any mention of our other, equally intimately related cousin, the bonobo in most of these "news" stories. Like a crazy relative who lives in a shed out back, bonobos tend to get mentioned in passing-if at all-in these sweeping declarations about the ancient primate roots of war. There are plenty of reasons self-respecting journalists might want to avoid talking about bonobos (their penchant for mutual masturbation, their unapologetic homosexuality and incest, a general sense of hippie-like shamelessness pervading bonobo social life), but the biggest inconvenience is the utter absence of any Viking-like behavior ever observed among bonobos. Bonobos never rape or pillage. No war. No murder. No infanticide.
The Nov. 2 Election Day is still months away, and already the name-calling between U.S. Senate candidates has become the hot topic on some news websites.
I haven’t heard many people talking about the race outside of the newsroom here, but the contest between U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-L.a, and U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, is going to be bitterly fought to the end.
Vitter will be scratching and clawing to hold onto his seat in the Senate even as other Republicans throughout the nation are expecting an easier time of it.
Melancon, meanwhile, will be trying desperately to oust Vitter from the Senate and claim the seat for himself.
If Vitter had been content to sit back, contribute his normal sound bites to the hate-mongering GOP crowd and unleash a torrent of anti-Obama ads this fall, he would probably be assured re-election.
After all, here in Louisiana, Obama is immensely unpopular, a fact that will only be worsened by his ongoing attempt to shut down much of the Gulf oil-and-gas activity.
Vitter wasn’t content with doing his job. Several years ago, he fessed up to being involved in a prostitute ring in Washington, D.C.
The prostitute in the center of the case has since died, hounded to her grave by federal prosecutors for her part in what is, if nothing else is, a two-party crime.
Vitter, who has acknowledged his involvement, went free with no prosecution and is now trying to continue representing our great state.
Even if his admitted sins had stopped years ago, Vitter would probably be assured of re-election.
Louisiana has never been very hard on its politicians. Just tell us what we want to hear and behave any way you like. We’ll keep sending you back to D.C.
Another scandal that some female voters might understandably find offensive has rocked Camp Vitter.
Brent Furer was a trusted aide to Vitter in 2008 when Furer pleaded guilty to holding a girlfriend at knifepoint and stabbing her in the hand.
People who might be willing to look the other way and forgive Vitter’s embarrassing sexual exploits might find the issue of domestic violence a bit more unappealing.
Vitter says now that he knew about Furer’s crimes and disciplined him. However, Furer kept his job working for the gentleman from Louisiana.
Even women who find Vitter’s disgusting brand of hate-based politics engaging might be turned off by his continued support of a victimizer of women.
Two years after the violence conviction, the incident finally cost Furer his job. A change of heart on the part of his boss? Nope. Did Furer mend his ways and decide that he had not been sufficiently punished for his crime? Nope.
What drove him out of the Vitter fold was that news about his conviction made it into the news.
So, as long as it’s just between you and Mr. Vitter, everything’s OK. Once it makes the news, all bets are off.
For his part, Melancon is making hay while the sun shines.
Staff
In response to a request from the Diocese of Montreal Synod in the fall of 2007, reaffirmed the next year, Bishop Barry Clarke has approved a liturgy for the blessing of previously solemnized civil marriages, tacitly including ones between same-sex couples.
He presented copies of the liturgy at the May meeting of the Diocesan Council. While the liturgy is already available in French and English, the bishop said that on his return from the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada in Halifax in June he would be writing to clergy and parishes to explain the process. The liturgy is adapted from the
Book of Occasional Celebrations produced by the General Synod of the national church in 1992.
The leaflet, with about 10 pages, contains a note that the liturgy was commissioned by the bishop in re -sponse to the 2007 motion requesting “that the Bishop grant permission for clergy, whose conscience permits, to bless duly solemnized and registered civil marriages, includ ing marriages between samesex couples, where at least one party is baptized; and that the Bishop authorize an appropriate rite and make regulations for its use in supportive parishes as ministries.”
This is the only explicit reference to same-sex marriages in the document.
A “Protocol for Use” includes provisions for a 60-day period between a request and the blessing and for a request to the bishop. Only priests authorized to solemnize weddings may preside and “no priest shall be obliged to bless a civil marriage.”
(Here are the “Protocol for Use” and preface of the new liturgy for the Blessing of Civil Marriage authorized by Bishop Barry Clarke and tabled at the May meeting of the Diocesan Council.)
PROTOCOL FOR USE
• The couple shall provide legal documentation as proof that the civil marriage has taken place;
• The couple shall commit to meeting with the priest to discern their reason for seeking a blessing upon their marriage;
• There shall be a minimum of sixty (60) days between the initial request and the blessing;
• At least one of the spouses must be baptised;
• A request for the blessing shall be made to the Bishop;
• The blessing shall be entered in the vestry book and noted as a blessing in the parish marriage register;
• Only priests holding a valid authorisation to solemnise marriages shall be permitted to preside;
• No priest shall be obliged to bless a civil marriage.
This process will be monitored and adapted as necessary.
This liturgy was commissioned by the Bishop in response to a motion passed at the 2007 Synod of the Diocese
of Montreal and affirmed by the 2008 Synod.
2007 Motion
Be it resolved that this Synod re quest that the Bishop grant permission for clergy, whose conscience permits, to bless duly solemnized and registered civil marriages, including marriages between same-sex couples, where at least one party is baptized; and that the Bishop authorize an appropriate rite and make regulations for its use in supportive parishes and ministries.
......
PREFACE
According to Western Christian thought, the ministers of marriage are the two individuals who marry each other. From the point of view of the church, the role of an ordained minister in a marriage service is to pray for God’s blessing on the marriage which the couple ministers to each other. (From the point of view of the state the minister may have other civil functions to perform.) An ordained minister offers the prayer of blessing because he/she is the appointed leader of the congregation assembled for this particular act of worship.
The church recognizes the validity of marriages which have been solemnised in accordance with its understanding of marriage, whether or not the exchange of vows took place in the context of an act of worship at which one of its ordained ministers presided. A civil ceremony at which two people took each other as spouses with the intention of lifelong commitment is a complete and valid wedding. People enter marriage through the forms of civil ceremonies for a variety of reasons: because of cultural differences, to appease families, because they were not practising Christians at the time. Sometimes they later wish to affirm the Christian nature of their marriage by a ceremony which culminates in a solemn prayer for God’s blessing on the marriage.
There is an intimate relationship between the vows of marriage and prayers of blessing which may follow them, even when there is a considerable interval of time between the two events.
Nothing that is done in the blessing of a civil marriage should reflect negatively on the original exchange of vows. The blessing of a civil marriage is not a second marriage. The marriage vows should not be repeated.
This service should not be used in contravention of diocesan regulations relating to remarriage after
divorce.
Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing Gulf oil well today, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the sea for at least two days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it.
There's no guarantee for such a delicate operation almost a mile below the water's surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August.
"It's not just going to be, you put the cap on, it's done. It's not like putting a cap on a tube of toothpaste," Coast Guard spokesman Capt. James McPherson said.
The Church of England was facing a fresh crisis tonight after the archbishops of Canterbury and York failed to win enough support for a compromise over women bishops at the Church's General Synod.
New concessions to traditionalists in the church, proposed by Rowan Williams and John Sentamu, were rejected by the Anglican clergy, although most bishops and laity at the Synod voted in favour. In dramatic scenes at York, shocked members of the Synod pleaded for time to pray and reflect on the vote and to consider the implications of the rebellion against the two most senior figures in the church.
....
The archbishops' amendment would have given traditionalists the protection they wanted from female ministry, averting a schism over the ordination of women as bishops. (My emphasis) Sentamu and Williams had proposed a special class of bishop to look after parishes who do not wish to have female bishops. The idea angered supporters of women clergy, who wrote to ask the archbishops to withdraw the amendment.
Had the amendment been passed, it might have minimised the numbers of clergy converting to Roman Catholicism under an initiative launched by the Vatican last year. A meeting was held in Leicester for those Church of England clergy interested in taking up the Catholic offer.
Canon Celia Thomson of Gloucester gave one of the best speeches illustrating the problems with what the Archbishops proposed:
‘This is the source of such sadness, such dismay among the ordained women at all stages of their ministry. The effect would be to legislate for the automatic transfer of episcopal authority in law in a way that would not only damage the authority of a woman bishop but also undermine the whole nature of episcopacy in the Church of England.’ She said the nominated bishops were ‘flying bishops’ by another name and that concept had not worked, in particular for women. It could also open up demands for alternative episcopal oversight in other areas where people did not agree with the diocesan bishop.
But even worse, it would send out a ‘damaging message’ about the Church to the wider world.
‘If the Church is seen to discriminate against women by law, not only will it compromise the ministry of women bishops in future and by default of all its women priests, but more fatally, the mission of the Church in the 21st century. Many people will de sair of the Church. Most people under 40 simply cannot understand it and so dismiss our beloved Church as irrelevant in our life and in attitudes towards the world.
Synod is chastened right now. But it shouldn’t be. It should be celebrating.
Well done the clergy. There is a God, it seems.
Residents of south Louisiana who got to know former LSU professor Ivor van Heerden as a tireless critic of the shoddy levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers might be surprised when they see his latest foray into the public arena: on a BP website, where he seems to be downplaying the environmental effects caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.Grandpère and I know Ivor, and we've always believed him to be a man of integrity, warning about the continuing and rapid erosion of the Louisiana coastline and the inadequacies of the levees in and around New Orleans years ago and in the aftermath of Katrina and the federal flood, although with his warnings, he put his job at LSU in jeopardy and was eventually fired.
"The public gets the perception that this is the black, heavy, tarry stuff that is in ship's bunkers and it covers everything and smothers it and just kills it, but that's not the kind of oil we're dealing with," Van Heerden says in a video on the BP website, dated July 1. "It's a very, very light oil. It's almost like diesel, and it breaks down very, very rapidly, especially here in Louisiana where it's very hot during the day and the water has suspended sediment in it so it may actually get hotter, and all of those combine with the fact that we have naturally in our system, the organisms, the microbes that break down the oil."
Van Heerden, a marine scientist, is still in the middle of a court fight with LSU over the university's decision not to extend his employment contract this year despite his leadership of a state-sponsored forensic investigation into the reasons levees and floodwalls in the New Orleans area failed during Hurricane Katrina.
