“Estimates are that one in six Catholic priests currently serving in the States comes from abroad, and roughly 300 new international priests arrive every year.” (John Allen, http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/foreign-priests-and-risk-plunder) I have a definitely biased reaction to that statement. I’m a former priest, who had to leave the clerical club because I wanted to also find God [...]
Posts from ‘February, 2010’
Guest Writer, Ashley Harness: JC of the LGBTQ
Was Jesus of Nazareth queer? Elton John says, goodbye yellow brick road; hello, gay Jesus. Our friend and peer Ashley Harnass is giddy about it: I have always loved Elton John for his shoes (they recently inspired a purple platform heel purchase). But now I love him for his theology too. He just told the [...]
Should Obama Get Nasty?
In the Feb. 21 issue of THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Walter Rogers wrote: President Obama’s political predicament is perhaps more serious than he understands or appreciates. He appears to see opponents as rivals to be charmed. What he should see are enemies determined to destroy his presidency. To save the agenda for which he was [...]
It’s the system, stupid!
From today’s New York Times, in a lead article on poverty in the US: “American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.” When I think on [...]
Re: Good Intentions and the Kidnapping of Haitian Children!
Dr. Cruz, I appreciate the concerns and questions you raise in trying to understand what these missionaries were thinking when they took these 33 children and tried to cross the Haitian/Dominican border. I too really have been trying to wrap my head around what would drive a person or group of people to think that [...]
Democracy or Dependency: The State of the US Congress
Democracy or Dependency: The State of the US Congress In a recent THE NATION article, Harvard Law Professor, Lawrence Lessig, lays out compelling evidence for the following conclusion about the state of our democracy due to the state of our Congress: “Rather than being, as our framers promised, an institution ‘dependent on the People,’ Congress [...]
Revelation?
“The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.” John Henry Newman When the heart is so reached, an old fashioned, theological word [...]
Good intentions and the kidnapping of Haitian Children!
Perhaps I am a bit too sensitive, being the father of three wonderful daughters, to opine about these issues regarding the possible kidnapping of Haitian children. While I may have more questions than commentary, let me begin by clearly stating one of my views concerning this story of 10 Baptist individuals from Idaho who allegedly [...]
Religious Violence
A comment on the rise of religious violence and terrorism that seems to make a lot of sense to me: “The secular world has to have enough justice in it for one not to have to constantly invoke God’s justice against the injustice of the profane.” That’s from Aijaz Ahmad. To which Tony Eagleton adds: [...]
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