WHAT IF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA REJECTS THE COVENANT?

The Anglican Church of Canada needs more clarity around what the “relational consequences” would be for not adopting the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant.

This is one of the key messages that Council of General Synod (CoGS) members said the church must convey when the 15th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meets in New Zealand Oct. 27-Nov. 7.

All member provinces of the Communion have been asked to report on progress made in response to the covenant, which has been recommended as a way of healing divisions triggered by debates over the issue of sexuality.
....

Emerging from small group discussions, some CoGs members said there’s a lot of uncertainty around what happens when a province decides to adopt or not adopt the covenant. Critics of the covenant have long warned that adopting it could result in a two-tier Communion.

Although a comprehensive study guide on the covenant was prepared and recommended for Canadian Anglicans, “there’s not much interest in discussing it,” reported members of one CoGS discussion group. “We’re not sure why,” they added.

By now, most people know what I think of the Anglican Covenant, and I hope, in the end, that the ACofC will vote to reject, as I hope that my church, The Episcopal Church, will vote to reject at General Convention in July.

H/T to Kurt Wiesner at The Lead.

CRIE DE CŒUR FOR NEW ORLEANS

At the time the picture was taken, the little girl in the left of the picture, Briana Allen, had not yet died from the gunshot wound.  A 33 year old woman, Shawanna Pierce, also died in the the shootings.  The three shooters were armed with two pistols and an assault rifle.

Dirty Sexy Ministry posted a crie de cœur for New Orleans and its people which ends with the following words.

So, I ask that you would pray with me for New Orleans. Pray that we have hope. Pray that we can believe in ourselves, believe that we have value.

Read her entire eloquent and moving post, and please pray for my beloved home city and the people who live there.

The story may be found at NOLA.com.

EISENHOWER ON THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.  Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.  In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 

President Dwight D Eisenhower in his Farewell Address.

Eisenhower was a Republican and a conservative of the sort that no longer survives as a force in the Republican Party.  The Tea Partiers have succeeded in either silencing them or driving them out of the party.

POPE'S BUTLER COOPERATING

Msgr Federico Lombardi

The pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, is cooperating with the Vatican investigation of the Vatican leaks.  And what if the investigation points to people in high positions in the Vatican, such as a cardinal or two?

Italian media report that a cardinal is suspected of playing a major role in the "Vatileaks" scandal. However, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, denied the reports. He said many Vatican officials were being questioned in the investigation but insisted: "There is no cardinal under suspicion."

He also dismissed as "pure fantasy" a rash of other unsourced reports about the investigation in the Italian media, which have been in a frenzy ever since reports of Gabriele's detention emerged last Friday.

Well, if the Rev Lombardi says so....  But then Lombardi also said:

...that the Pope had never been a member of the Hitler Youth, but journalists quickly pointed out to him that Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope, had admitted this himself in the 1997 book Salt of the Earth.

The ineptitude is stupefying.  If the news is bad, deny, always deny; get the facts later.

I hope the butler is receiving good legal advice, because he's up against heavy hitters.

UPDATE LAGNIAPPE:

WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING?

Each Memorial Day seems sadder and more difficult to get through than the last.  Yesterday was a bummer, a miserable day.  Perhaps next year I'll ignore the holiday altogether, although I'll probably feel guilty if I do.  What are we celebrating?  Because of my ambivalence about celebrating the day, Charles Pierce's headline resonated powerfully with me. 

Loving the Warrior, Hating the Wars: Our Memorial Daze

The entire article is very good.  I linked to it yesterday and again today.  We are quick to go to war, but why then do we treat our veterans and their families so badly?

Does war lead to anything but more wars?  That is the question, as dithering Hamlet said.

'NO MAN'S LAND' - ERIC BOGLE

And I can't help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you 'The Cause'?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

It's a song that was written about the military cemeteries in Flanders and Northern France. In 1976, my wife and I went to three or four of these military cemeteries and saw all the young soldiers buried there. —Eric Bogle

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - TO HONOR THE FALLEN

Let us honor the fallen in our wars by caring well for the survivors, the wounded in body, mind, and spirit, the healthy, and the families of the military, both of those who have died and those who still live.

IN MEMORIAM - MAY 2012

Arlington National Cemetery

Memorial Day in the United States is a day of remembrance of those in all our wars who gave everything in the service of their country. We honor them for their courage and dedication to duty. We extend our sympathy to their families and friends, whether the loss is recent or from long times past. We stand with you. We mourn with you.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. Micah 4:1-4

Lord God, Almighty and Everlasting Father, we pray for all those who have died in wars. We pray the they may rest in peace in the perpetual light of your love. We pray for your blessing upon the families and friends of all those who have died in service to their country. Console them for their aching loss. Bring them healing of body, mind, and spirit. Give them strength and courage to go forward, and Lord God, above all else, give them your peace that passes understanding to keep their minds and hearts.

Below is the faded bumper sticker that I put on my car in 2003 after the start of the war in Iraq. Originally, the top letters were bright yellow, and the bottom letters were bright blue and red.

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001.


Image at the head of the post from Wikipedia.

Reposted from last year with some editing.

For additional reading, I recommend to you Charles Pierce's Memorial Day post.  A short excerpt is below, but do read it all.

Now, for the veterans of the two wars of the past decade, we're giving them all kinds of favors and goodies and public applause, and maybe even a parade or two, overcompensating our brains out, but, ultimately, what does all the applause mean at the end of the day? We are apparently fine with two more years of vets coming home from Afghanistan, from a war that 60 percent of us say we oppose. But we support The Troops. Will we become a more skeptical nation the next time a bunch of messianic fantasts concoct a war out of lies? Perhaps, but we support The Troops. Will we tax ourselves sufficiently to pay for what it costs to care for the people we send to one endless war and one war based on lies? Well, geez, we'll have to think about that, but we support The Troops.

STORM IN THE HOLY SEE

Paolo Gabriele riding in front of the pope

 An already sordid scandal over leaked Vatican documents took a Hollywood-like turn Saturday with confirmation that the pope's own butler had been arrested after documents he had no business having were found in his Vatican City apartment.

The pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, allegedly did it...stole the documents.

The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of leaked Vatican documents detailing power struggles, political intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of Catholic Church governance. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with confirmation Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI's own butler was the alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an apparent bid to discredit the pontiff's No. 2.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the president of the Vatican Bank, aka the Institute for Religious Works (I am not joking!) was fired.  Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the bank said you can't make this stuff up.  As the Fonz would say, "Heeeeey!"

The Vatileaks scandal began in January when Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi broadcast letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator to the pope in which he begged not to be transferred for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican's U.S. ambassador.

Sooo, the former No 2 man is now exiled to the U.S., the equivalent of Siberia to Vatican insiders, and the present No. 2 man in the Vatican, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is in hot water.

Bertone, 77, has been blamed for a series of gaffes and management problems that have plagued Benedict's papacy and, according to the leaked documents, generated a not inconsiderable amount of ill will directed at him from other Vatican officials.

Can't the pope trust anyone?  Perhaps the butler did not realize he was playing with the big boys.  According to the Vatican spokesman, Msgr Federico Lombardi, Paolo is in detention in the Vatican and is being investigated.

I hope I've got the complicated story more or less right, as it's not easy to follow.  Read the article, and correct me if I've made mistakes.

Meanwhile back in Siberia - er - the U.S., the Roman Catholic bishops are moving ahead to deprive their female employees of health insurance coverage for birth control.

Picture from Wikipedia.

Thanks to all who sent me links to the story of the shenanigans in the Vatican.      

    

BRAVO REPLACEMENTS LIMITED!

Bob Page, chairman of Replacements Limitted is a man of great courage.

In the months leading up to North Carolina’s vote this month to ban gay marriage, most of the state’s business leaders were conspicuously silent. While some executives spoke out against it as individuals, not one Fortune 500 company based in North Carolina, including Bank of America, Duke Energy, VF Corporation and Lowe’s, opposed it. 

But one company did: Replacements Limited, which sells silver, china and glassware, and is based in Greensboro. Its founder and chairman, Bob Page, is gay. The company lobbied legislators, contributed money to causes supporting gay marriage, rented a billboard along the interstate near its headquarters, and sold T-shirts at its showroom. Its experience may explain why no other for-profit company followed its example. 

The response was swift and ugly. Phone calls and emails poured in from people saying they would never do business with the company again.  The numbers of responses in support of the company's efforts against the bill were much smaller.

Andrew Spainhour, general counsel for the company, who spearheaded the opposition to the ban on gay marriage, said he is concerned for Bob Page's safety.

“Bob has been absolutely fearless in the face of that,” Mr. Spainhour said. “It’s a North Carolina that exists but that I don’t recognize. There are two North Carolinas: the progressive cities and college towns, and places where there are no openly gay people.”
....

Mr. Page, 67, said he didn’t like politics and wasn’t “extreme,” or “in your face” about being gay. But, he added: “I just refuse to hide. I did that way too many years and it’s just not healthy.”

At the same time, he said: “I’m always concerned I will hurt our business. I know we have lost business. But I don’t have a board or shareholders I have to answer to. My life is not about money.”

Over the years, I'd purchased a good many missing pieces of china and flatware from Replacements, and their merchandize and service was first rate.  I hope the company will quickly gain far more customers than they've lost.

Read the rest of Bob Page's bittersweet story.