Balancing multiple goals [Updated]

Update 1/1/2020, 11:55 pm CST - I've made substantial revisions to the post, having reflected further - and, I hope, more clearly.  Many thanks to those of you who have commented already; if this topic interests you and you have the time, I'd ask you to read v.2.0 of this post and let me know what you think.

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In a comment to the recent post on gaps in the institutional church's lists of names of abusive clergy, Katherine posed this question:

Is a diocese ever justified in trying to protect assets?

I Dreamed a Dream

 St Joseph paid attention to his dreams. People did that until Sigmund Freud came along and told them the dreams showed they hated their mother and had a thing for their Skye terrier. So we don’t talk about our dreams now.
 I’m going to break tradition and talk about the one I had Sunday night. I had it twice, actually, because I woke up remembering it clearly, then went back to sleep and had it again, with some elaboration. I’ve been thinking about it since I woke up Monday. It’s about our Herod.
 Here is the dream, and some interpretation:

Happy New Year: abuse is back in the news

On Sunday morning, as on every morning of the year, I trekked outside to the foot of my driveway, picked up my local suburban newspaper, brought it into the house, removed the waterproof plastic wrapper, and unfolded it to see the front page.  What confronted me yesterday was this headline:

Hundreds of accused clergy left off church's sex abuse lists

Shoot-out in the Sanctuary

By the time I finish this, probably more will be known about the  at shooting at
West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas. You may have seen the video already. But here are the nut grafs from The Times:

 "A gunman opened fire at a church in Texas on Sunday morning, killing one person and critically wounding another before a member of the church’s security team fatally shot him, the authorities and witnesses said.
 "Between 250 and 300 people were inside the auditorium of West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, near Fort Worth, when the gunman opened fire just before communion, said Jack Cummings, a minister at the church....  "A member of the security team was killed, he said. The team is made up of volunteers who are members of the church’s congregation. They are licensed to carry firearms and practice shooting regularly, Mr. Cummings said."

 We have a hired security guard at all the Sunday Masses, and volunteers patrol the parking lot in a golf cart, looking for suspicious activity. In Florida, anybody driving a car is probably guilty of suspicious activity. Our rent-a-cops run from professional to Lieutenant Calley. Today’s was armed for a computer game and was avoiding interaction with those he was there to protect. In addition, the ushers lock the side doors (so they open only from inside) as soon as the entrance procession reaches the altar.
 We (ushers) were told that this is necessary. Whether an insurance company makes it so was left dangling, although the question was asked. Suspicious characters, who may (or may not) be on an FBI list were seen driving through the parking lot before the new policies were instituted.
 The Texas shoot-out  is one of the few cases I can recall in which good guys with a gun stopped a bad guy with the gun, as the NRA always promises. The NRA never mentions the good guy who was shot. But then, why do I feel less secure than I did before we got security? It may have to do with the sheer commonness of such events.

Back to Jim...per Christmas post and on deaconing...

and per Jean's request:

Back to Jim: Are you surprised how much your role as deacon has made you a "priest." I know deacons are part of Orders, but I remember a time when enthusiasm for becoming a deacon among some I knew was focused less on clergy responsibilities than on "secular" responsibilities.... education, social justice, organizing albeit within the parish or diocesan compass. As you say the shortage has skewed deacons toward sacerdotal roles...Is that what you expected. Is it a good thing (except for keeping Masses or Mass-like liturgies available)?

[It seems from my limited knowledge that deacons in the Archdiocese of New York are more or less "junior" priests...and who are probably mature married men.]

Christmas report

Hi everyone, I'm coming up for air.  I've spent the last week doing full-time Christmas preparation: getting the Christmas shopping done, the Christmas cards out the door, baking, cooking - and worship.

Clutter Update: Brooklyn too More! and More!!

This is the time of year when some contemplate throwing out stuff. It is a noble idea, but not one I am particularly consumed with. I am more inclined to nod my head at stories (in the NYTimes) about clutter in midtown--usually people clutter, but more recently Uber car clutter. Our inept mayor (and former presidential primary candidate) De Blasio has made the matter worse by banning cars in favor of bikes and scooters. Well, never mind! He'll be gone soon.

Such were my thoughts as I read a story in the Guardian today about the City of Edinburgh (Scotland). They have tourist clutter brought on by seasonal festivals managed by a company called Underbelly. Coming up is New Year's Eve and a public celebration in a part of the city that appears to be residential. In order to control the crowds, residents must obtain permits to enter their own neighborhood. They can also request up to six permits (presumably for their own guests). One suspects the six limit there has to do with "Underbelly" fearing it will loose money for tickets to its  New Year's Celebration. Who Knows? But the locals are up in arms!! I salute them.

Reminds me why we have never gone to Times Square for the New Year's Eve Stand Around waiting for the ball to drop.

Just for laughs let me mention that there is a bagel store in our neighborhood that has lines winding around the corner on week-end mornings. When passing I stop and say, "there's another bagel store down two blocks--No Lines!" I get a blank stare and someone waves a tourist guide, "Best Eats in NYC." No mention that they're all the same and in today's New York they are all made by cheerful friendly Thai immigrants! That's authentic for you.

UPDATE: The Guardian reports that the security arrangement "Underbelly" has in place for Hogmanay, the New Year's celebration in Edinburgh will not be enforced by the local police. It's up to Underbelly to enforce its rules, which obviously have no legal basis! Anyone know what Hogmanay means?

At last the Brooklyn story appears on line....In the meantime, here is a Brooklyn (NY) saga of residents dealing with cruise ships who dock in Brooklyn (yes, it is lapped by large amounts of water). They seem to spend a whole day in port disembarking thousands and embarking thousand more while suffusing the air with pollution. In it's own way it mirrors the stories of Venice and Edinburgh. 
NB. Note the center of the story is a local advocate of ships turning off their engines. He's been at a long time. The story never really gets to the bottom of the problem: why don't the ships plug into the on-dock facilities available for providing electricity? The NYTimes is treating this as a human interest story rather than Why isn't our city/state government working for the benefit of its citizens?

No Room at the Inn

This article by columnist Ben Shapiro wins my award for most clueless take on homelessness of the season.  It is ironic that it appears in the same week that we celebrate the birth of Someone who had no place to lay his head.
From the article:

Highly Impeachable...UPDATE 2: more impeachables...and more

One of the Republicans talking points in yesterday's House "debate" was a Washington Post headline (they claim, I haven't fact-checked) in the days after Trump's inauguration to the effect that efforts to impeach would now begin. The implication for Republican debaters was and is that the Democrats contested his election from day one of his presidency.

Maybe there were such Democrats. But Peter Baker in today's New York Times (12/19) captures what has really been going on: "WASHINGTON — For the most unpredictable of presidents, it was the most predictable of outcomes. Is anyone really surprised that President Trump was impeached? His defiant disregard for red lines arguably made him an impeachment waiting to happen."

Yes! This was an impeachment waiting to happen. The norms and rules of presidential governance have been overturned and repudiated by Trump from the day he took office, including his refusal to give up his business ties, his quarrel with inaugural crowd estimates, his installing his daughter and son in the White House, etc., etc. We can argue, as Republicans might that none of these (and other example) were an impeachable offense, but they, and many other examples of Trump's words and deeds have undermined good government. Trump has reaped the whirlwind that he revved up and has maintained at lightening speed.

Republicans have been thrown a life preserver by George Conway (spouse of Kelly Anne) et al, in announcing  a political Pac and effort to thwart Trump's reelection. "We Are Republicans and We Want Trump Defeated."   Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, etc. take note.

UPDATE: Where did the "Ukraine interfered in 2016" story come from? Here's a Washington Post story based on reports from several former Trump Admin. officials.

"After meeting privately in July 2017 with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Trump grew more insistent that Ukraine worked to defeat him, according to multiple former officials familiar with his assertions.

"The president’s intense resistance to the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia systematically interfered in the 2016 campaign — and the blame he cast instead on a rival country — led many of his advisers to think that Putin himself helped spur the idea of Ukraine’s culpability, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

"One former senior White House official said Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because “Putin told me.”

Jennifer Rubin, also at the WashPost, asks why those former officials haven't come forward...or didn't come forward during the House impeachment hearing. OR why don't they go public now?

UPDATE 2: We could each impeach Trump from our lap tops!

White House official directed hold on Ukraine aid shortly after Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky

Drug Shortages: An American Problem

The problem of drug shortages in the treatment of cancer in children is described in  this Medpage Today  article.  What caught my attention about the article was the name of the drug being discussed, vincristine.  I recognized it as part of the chemotherapy regimen that my mother had been treated with, twenty years ago.

Juxtaposition

The same week that Boris and Brexit won a smashing victory (the adjective is not chosen thoughtlessly), Greta was named Time's Person of the Year.  In my mind, this encapsulates the tension (conflict?) between populism and technocracy.  I'm a technocrat, aka a dinosaur.

One more thought about this: I think populism is ascendant in democracies in recent years because it speaks poetry to the voters.  Technocrats' preferred genre is prose.

A Nationwide Analysis of Online Sermons

Pew Research Center: The Digital Pulpit

Computational analysis of nearly 50,000 sermons reveals differences in length and content across major Christian traditions.

	Length in minutes	Word Count
All	37	5,502
Black Protestant	54	6,139
Evangelical	39	5,038
Mainline	25	3,251
Catholic	14	1.847

In comparison to Catholic homilies, Mainline sermons are 1.8 times longer, Evangelical sermons are 2.8 times longer, and Black Protestant sermons are 3.9 times longer.

I suspect that that Pew’s digit sample overestimates the length of the Catholic homily. Jim’s latest homily comes in at 1230 words which, if he speaks at the average speed comes in at roughly 9.5 minutes, which I suspect is the actual median length of a Catholic homily. 

I don’t think I have heard many homilies that go over 14 minutes because they would challenge the unwritten rule that the Mass should not exceed 60 minutes. Now I suspect good homilists, and/or those who are just so proud of their homilies that they post them do test the limits. 

Jim might like to try out a 14 minute, 1847 word homily sometime. In addition he might want to try out the Black Protestant tradition within the 14 minutes. at his current 1230 words. Black Preachers speak slower because they allow more congregational participation. 

To gather the data used in this report, the Center built computational tools that identified every institution labeled as a church in the Google Places application programming interface (API), collected and transcribed all the sermons publicly posted on a representative sample of their websites during an eight-week period, and analyzed the content of the sermons in a few relatively simple ways.

Consolation, hope and joy

This is my homily for today, the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Cycle A.  The readings are here.

"First, Do No Harm"

I don't know if any of you have come across this tragic story about a young woman, Alana Chen, who died in an apparent suicide. She had previously shared her story in August in a Denver Post article about undergoing "conversion therapy" . From that article:

The Anarchy Next Door

 Haiti, a country of 11.2 million less than 700 air miles from Miami, has undergone nearly total meltdown in the past three or four months. This Reuters story is recent. None of the usual media are paying any attention.
 I wouldn't have looked for this story if our parish didn't have a sister-relationship with a Haitian parish. Among other things, our youth group rounds up shoebox-sized Christmas packages for the kids in the Haitian school. More than 100 boxes are sitting in West Palm Beach now because there is no way to get them through the port of Haiti unstolen. Well, basically, the port is shut down. There is no gas, no money and no hope on the island. President Jovenel Moïse probably should resign, but he probably won't and whatever succeeds him will be no better.
 (By the way, you should see the U.S. Embassy there. It is what the Taj Mahal would look like if the Taj had  been built as a fort instead of a tomb.)
 When asked why this came as news to parishioners here, one of our contact guys said, "You see stories every now and then. They are about three sentences long. They say, 'President Moïse says he will not step down. President Moïse is a friend of President Trump. President Trump is being impeached, but he says it is a 'witch hunt.' "
 If half the reporters standing by to hear and repeat the president's daily complaints and insults were pulled off the prestigious but boring White House beat and assigned to cover the world outside our bubble, maybe we would know what's going on in Haiti
 Maybe, too, there would have been coverage of the meeting between  President Putin who is a friend of President Trump who is facing impeachment and President Zelensky, who is a friend of the Republicans in Congress who are defending President Trump from impeachment. The meeting was brokered by President Macron of France, who used to be a friend of President Trump, who is facing impeachment but says it is a 'witch hunt.' President Trump tweeted hopes that Putin and Zelensky would find a formula that would make both happy.
 "U.S. President Supports Both Invader and Invadee." Heck of a better story than that he says once more that he is a hunted witch.

"A Hidden Life" is coming

I'm looking forward in anticipation of Terence Malick's new film "A Hidden Life".  It is a film based on Franz Jägerstätter's faith-based refusal to swear fealty to Adolph Hitler, which eventually cost him his life.  Apparently, his opposition in the story is not mainly the Nazis, but fellow Christians whi try to persuade him to abandon his quixotic foolishness.  Even clergy and hierarchy.  A review of the film is here

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hidden-life-faith-based-masterpiece/

I am wondering what secular film critics will make of it.  Having previously immersed myself in "The Tree of Life", I look forward to seeing this movie.  And I wonder if it will cause me to wonder if someone like me who's purported to be a Christian has lived

Retired priest hits two parish schoolteachers with car, killing one

I am sorry to post such a depressing news story during this holiday season, but there may be one or two points of interest - including, perhaps, clericalism playing a role in a woman's tragic death and another's serious injury.

Dec. 12: My favorite Marian feast -- and hers? - Update

 In the real, unadulterated depiction of the Blessed Mother on the Guadalupe tilma, she is about eight-and-a-half months pregnant. That’s right, since her liturgical due date was about two weeks after her image appeared on St. Juan Diego’s cloak in 1531.

 You don’t see many images of Mary in which she is pregnant. She was, you know. It’s in Luke. But when she appears in approved statues and paintings, her appearance more often implies the virginal and leaves out maternity. Additionally, when I see them I think of the greeting that drives my Jewish friends up a wall: “But you don’t look Jewish.” Well, she wouldn’t if the model was a Renaissance painter’s mistress, which so many of the models were, would she?

 In many unauthorized copies of the Guadalupe tilma, she gets Nordic coloring. They also lift her head as if the humble tilt she showed to Juan Diego ill-befits a queen of heaven, who should look like Wonder Woman when she is eclipsing – as she is on the tilma – the sun god.

  But that is not how she presented herself.

 What is on Juan Diego’s cloak is not a painting. The tilma is made from fiber that lasts no more than 20 years when artists try to copy the image on the identical kind of material and make what one enthusiastic Milwaukeean called a “genuine replica.” The tilma is going on 500 years. Lots of other things about it aren’t explained either.

  I have never seen a picture of Mary up to her elbows in dough with a rolling pin in her hands. The title would be Mary, Maker of Bread, and that’s symbolism that just wouldn’t quit. It would probably give the vapors to the keepers of that distinctly Catholic idea that Mary was a virgin mother without ever being pregnant or breaking a sweat. (I also don’t believe that a Jewish mother undergoing what she went through was meek and mild as a dove.)

  I don’t think the standard, authorized Catholic image of Mary is very biblical or true to life. More importantly, we have the evidence of the tilma that neither does its subject. 

 Update: I had an October date on top. Maybe confusingnmy birthday month with the one we are in. Or maybe just another senior moment. Anyway Deacon Jim gets credit for me getting the headline right.
Second update: A nice piece on interpreting Our Lady of Guadalupe,by Timothy Matovina,  popped up on the Commonweal Website: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/edges-empire

I'm not lovin' it

(NB - I have been mostly absent from NewGathering for a few weeks now.  There is no better or worse reason for this than that the rest of my life - especially work - has been crowding out such pleasurable activities as reading, thinking and writing.  In fact, as I write this, I'm also sitting on a conference call for work, at 11:30 pm on a Saturday night, which - thankfully - isn't requiring much of my active participation.  I do have a few more blog posts rattling around inside me, and I'll endeavor to cough 'em up as time permits.)

McDonalds has joined the march of retailers replacing humans with computers and robots.

Nebraskans Skeptical of Bridging Partisan Divides

Thanks to Anne for pointing out this article  yesterday.  It isn't too often that our state makes the pages of NCR. But I felt that it was mostly accurate.
From the article:

More Ukraine Fall-Out

Among the sorry outcomes of Trump's September phone call to Ukraine president Zelensky is the latters meeting with Russian Diktator Vladimir Putin in Paris on Monday at what are reputed to be peace talks.

Trump's phone call and Giuliani's (et al) machinations drumming up misinformation about the Bidens and Ukraine interference in the 2016 election (fake news) leaves Zelensky in a weakened position. He will be trying to end the conflict in the Russian-occupied Donbas region of Ukraine. He would be in a far better position if the U.S. was four square behind Ukraine in its efforts to reclaim its territory and to remove Russian meddling (to say nothing of its seizure of Crimea).  Trump and his free-lancing gangsters have steadily undermined Ukraine's claims to independence from Russian interference.

Here is a relatively short Brookings run down on how and why the U.S. became a guarantor of Ukraine independence. They gave up the nuclear weapons place there by the Soviets (remember 1990!).  

And here is a CFR assessment of the prospects for the Paris talks.

Margaret Steinfels' reflections on Havel and the Velvet Revolution

Margaret Steinfels has an interesting article in the current Commonweal - reflections on what has happened in Czechia since the Velvet Revolution.

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/rereading-havel


Rereading Havel now, I hear the echo of a beleaguered people. It may be a stretch, but I can’t help wondering whether we are the ones now caught up in “living a lie”? I

Rep. Heck Departs Washington

“The countless hours I have spent in the investigation of Russian election interference and the impeachment inquiry have rendered my soul weary,” wrote Mr. Heck, who was first elected to Congress in 2012. “I will never understand how some of my colleagues, in many ways good people, could ignore or deny the President’s unrelenting attack on a free press, his vicious character assassination of anyone who disagreed with him, and his demonstrably very distant relationship with the truth.”

"Mr. Heck appeared to become emotional while speaking to Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine, who was recalled from her post in May....I am very angry about how it is the most powerful person on the face of the earth would remove you from office after your stellar service and somehow feel compelled to characterize you as ‘bad news,’ and then to ominously threaten that you’re ‘going to go through some things....So, I am angry. But I’m not surprised.”

"Soul weary" is how Mr. Heck describes his state, and describes many other Americans.
Can the rest of us "soul weary" Americans take heart from Trump's colleagues in London mocking him and laughing at him?  Or should we cringe? The Emperor has no clothes, no self-respect....no soul.
@New York Times, 12/5. 

Meanwhile....The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, appears to be "soul ebullient." 

“Don't mess with me,” Pelosi said.
Rosen had shouted the question to Pelosi about whether she hates Trump after she had ended her press conference and was walking away from the podium. The speaker stopped and answered, clearly offended.
“I don’t hate anybody,” she said. “I was raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody, not anybody in the world.
“Don't accuse me of hate,” she added.
Rosen said he did not accuse her, he asked a question.
“You did. You did,” Pelosi shot back....
@Roll Call, 12/5.

The Deep State

I often don't agree with Jonah Goldberg, but I thought his recent column  on the "deep state" was right on. It's a term that Trump and his minions and excuse makers have bandied about. But they have not indicated that they know, or else they choose to ignore, its origins, or what it really means.
From the Goldberg column: