NEWS ON OUR BROTHER GÖRAN

From James at The Three-Legged Stool:

Our very beloved brother, Göran, has been on hospice for a week. He has an aggressive form of prostate cancer. According to his niece, the does not have a lot of time before he joins the Communion of Saints. Please keep him in your prayers as he graduates from mortality. And remember his blood family and his adopted family one of whom I am privileged to be.

Growing up in the shadow of a Swedish Lutheran Church, I learned Children of the Heavenly Father at a very young age. It was always sung in times of distress and for funerals. The last verse of the English translation says:

Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord, His children sever.
His the loving purpose solely,
To preserve them, pure and holy.

Thank you, James, for giving us the sad news.

UPDATE: Today is Göran's birthday. If you're his Facebook friend, you can wish him Happy Birthday over there.

UPDATE 2: Here's the link to the post on our gathering in Leeds two years ago, which includes more pictures of Göran. If you click to enlarge the second photo down, you will see that Göran wears preaching bands. He looked like a character right out of an Ingmar Bergman film. He's a dear, dear man, and I'm privileged to have met him.

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

From Inside Politics:

Rep. Michele Bachmann kicked off her presidential campaign on Monday in Waterloo, Iowa, and in one interview surrounding the official event she promised to mimic the spirit of Waterloo's own John Wayne.

The only problem, as one eagle-eyed reader notes: Waterloo's John Wayne was not the beloved movie star, but rather John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer.

The campaign should be fun, unless the electorate goes completely crazy and elects Bachmann.

In case you wonder, John Wayne, the movie actor, was born in Iowa but in Winterset, Iowa, so it's an easy mistake to make, right? Except it's best not to make the mistake in Waterloo. Will the mistake be Bacnmann's Waterloo? Of course not.

A HUMAN FACE ON THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

From NOLA.com:

A Harvey [Louisiana] native who returned last month to Afghanistan for his second tour of duty in the war-torn country was killed Sunday in the dangerous Nad ‘Ali district, the Department of Defense said.

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Daniel L. Douville, a 33-year-old career airman, died from injuries he suffered from an improvised explosive device.

Douville spent the last seven months with his family vacationing in the Bahamas and cheering on his three children at sporting events near their Fort Walton Beach, Fla., home before his redeployment.

Family was the only thing Douville loved more than his military life, said LaShana Douville, his wife of 14 years.

What a lovely family.

O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept our prayers on behalf of your servant Daniel, and grant him an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our brother Daniel. We thank you for giving him to his family and friends, to know and to love as a companion on their earthly pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console those who mourn. Give them faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence they may continue their course on earth, until, by your call, they are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

STORY OF THE DAY - SPIDER PRINCESS

If I was a spider princess, she said, I
would spin webs the color of sky & catch
drops of sunlight to give to children who
watch too much TV & then everyone
would remember to come outside to
play. If I was a spider princess, she said,
things would be different.

From StoryPeople.

WHAT GOVERNOR JINDAL AND HIS HELPERS DID FOR LOUISIANA

From the Editor's Column in the summer issue of Louisiana Cultural Vistas:

Inventing America and Destroying Louisiana

It was Washington's generation that had to invent America and all its institutions and envision what a great nation ought to be. It was Washington and his contemporaries, foremost among them Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, who understood that a national government had to secure revenue for its institutions, and was obligated not only to provide for the national defense and the delivery of mail, but also to found libraries and universities, and to promote exploration, learning, and a civil society.

So how bitter it is for us to descend to the present political movement in Louisiana, of an infantile populism that imagines it can have a democracy and not and not have taxes adequate to provide for the commonwealth, that would savage by a loss of $300 million a year to a higher education system that had just barely gained the ranks of respectability, that incarcerates its own citizens at the highest rate in the free world, that has a high school graduation rate of of 59 percent, that slashes its arts programs 60 percent in a single year and completely eliminates funding for humanities? It is a barbarism we are imposing on ourselves, a dark that descends from the head of the stairs.

To put it in more colloquial terms, imagine that Louisiana was a football team in a 50-team league and finished perennially, year after year, in 49th or 50th place. Would we not be firing its coaches and running them out of town rather than even contemplating re-appointing them? Would the citizens really care that the tickets cost only a nickel and clamor to see such a team play? And yet politically, that is the low bar we have set for ourselves: in education, in health care, in literacy, in the humanities and culture. And it is not being imposed by Washington or people from New Jersey; we have done it to ourselves.

The complete loss of the state appropriation for the humanities, just recently at $2 million annually, will cost the state $14 million annually in economic impact, increase our illiteracy...and diminish the quality of life incalculably. I could delineate this in detail but I will suffice to illustrate the result as Laurence Sterne might have in his prescient post-modern novel "Tristram Shandy":

as a black hole.

Martin Sartisky, Ph. D.
Editor-in-Chief

There you have it. We have done it to ourselves. And Bobby Jindal is very likely to be reelected on his platform of no new taxes and ridding ourselves of the old taxes. Governance by slash and burn. Unfortunately, if I said, "Only in Louisiana!" I would not speak truth. We are surely at the extreme of the spectrum, but the same sort of madness is spread throughout the land.

WHAT WILL I TELL THE CHILDREN?!

Athenae at First Draft splains what to tell the kids when they see the shocking sight of two people of the same sex kissing on the tee vee.

Is this that difficult to discuss with children? Ladies kissing on each other? "Well, honey, they love each other just like Dad and I do. Some ladies are like that. You want a hot pretzel? I'm sending your brother on a concession run. Mama needs another beer."

And ain't dat jes' right?

HAPPY GAY PRIDE DAY!

My friend Doug (Counterlight) and his Michael

I am proud to know Doug and my other LGTB friends, who are far too numerous to mention. I have not met Michael, but I hope to one day. I love you all, and I wish you a great day, whether you join the crowds at parades, or attend parties, or spend the day quietly at home. Mwah, mwah, mwah!

Thanks to Counterlight for letting me borrow his pictures.

EPISCOPAL PRIEST RESIGNS AS HISTORY OF SEXUAL ABUSE IS REVEALED

From The Lead:

The Kansas City Star reports that a former Benedictine monk and Catholic priest who is now an Episcopal priest has resigned his position and has begun the process of renouncing his orders after admitting to committing sexual abuse against boys while serving as music director at a Roman Catholic monastery.

Bede Parry, 69, served All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas since 2000 and was received in 2004. The abuse, which took place between 1973 and 1979 at Conception Abbey, in Missouri and affected "five or six" separate victims, one of whom recently filed suit against the Abbey and the Benedictine Order. The suit alleges that he also has "inappropriate sexual contact" with a student at St. John's University in Minnesota in 1982 and again at the Abbey in 1987.

Another sordid story. Parry said he told the bishop in Nevada at the time, Katharine Jefferts Schori, about the 1987 incident, but not about the other incidents.

There's more.

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

A spokeswoman at the Episcopal Church’s national office said Thursday that “we do not comment on lawsuits or allegations” and referred questions to the diocese in Nevada.

This simply will not do. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, who was Bishop of the Diocese of Nevada at the time, permitted Bede Parry to become an Episcopal priest. She must explain why.

Further, Bishop Paul Marshall, of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, PA, says in the comments at The Lead:

Now let's be serious. When 815-level lawyers threaten and cajole diocesan bishops not to reveal multiple sex-abuse cover-ups at the highest level lest former leaders be embarrassed, what can we expect, and why do we look down on the RCC? Serious and credentialled investigative reporters can contact me.

As a rector I had to follow a priest who was simply passed along by another bishop, and as a bishop have had the same experience with a staff member who was protected by his bishop, with catastrophic results here

On paper, we are a one-strike church, but in reality, too may people are walked. 815 refused comment on this story with principled-sounding obfuscation, which essentially tells it all, doesn't it? There is no more transparency at 815 than previously, as some of the commentators above know to their pain. (My emphasis)

Bishop Paul is exactly right. We need to hear an explanation from the national office of the Episcopal Church, and the sooner, the better.

UPDATE: SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) put out a statement:

To current and former Las Vegas Catholics and Episcopalians, we say: If you have knowledge or suspicions - however old, small or seemingly insignificant - about Parry’s crimes, it is your moral and civic duty to call police. Please summon the courage to do what's right, call law enforcement and hopefully prevent more devastated lives.

Church officials shouldn’t split hairs, make excuses, and be silent. Whether a predator is a diocesan or religious order cleric, alive or dead, Protectant or Catholic, still in Nevada or moved elsewhere doesn’t matter. The shepherds have a duty to protect his flock, help law enforcement, warn unsuspecting families and work hard to find and help others who’ve been wounded.
....

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com), Peter Isely (414-429-7259, peterisely@yahoo.com), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

Update 2 from the comments:

Ann said...

write the pb's office -- pboffice@episcopalchurch.org and copy nrfox@episcopalchurch.org and crobertson@episcopalchurch.org and ssauls@episcopalchurch.org

If you'd like to express your opinion....

UPDATE 3: See Ann Fontaine's call for action at The Friends of Jake.

TOBIAS HALLER'S "QUICK ICONE"

Tobias Haller wrote a series of what he calls "quick icone" selected from Holy Women Holy Men.

The icon above, which is posted at Tobias' blog In a Godward Direction, is the poet James Weldon Johnson, who also wore many other hats.

Below is a brief excerpt from Johnson's poem "The Creation".

AND God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely --
I'll make me a world."

The poem is wonderful. Please do read it all.

Tobias wrote "quick icone" of G. K. Chesterton, Ini Kopuria, and Thurgood Marshall. The icons are written on cardboard with various materials. Tobias says, "I suppose, in prayer form, this is the difference between the Divine Liturgy and the Arrow Prayer or Ejaculation. (Quiet in the back!)"

He made me laugh. In my Roman Catholic school, we were urged to pray ejaculations, or short prayers, throughout the day, and I do so even today to my edification. (Quiet in the back!)

My Jesus, mercy.

God, help me.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON ON POWER

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws."

John Adams, letter to Jefferson, 1816

H/T to Rmj at Adventus, who also quotes Reinhold Niebuhr:

In any event we have to deal with a vast religious-political movement which generates more extravagant forms of political injustice and cruelty out of the pretensions of innocency than we have ever known in human history.

Rmj notes that Niebuhr wrote the words in 1959, and says, "Good to know there's been some progress....."

How sad to see it spelled out plainly that, on certain issues, such as economic justice and equality, we have not come a long way, baby. Rmj's entire post is surely worth a read.