HerbEly

A Question for our Catholic Bishops

With shepherds like this, who needs wolves?

In a legal maneuver, the archdiocese in July listed all 390,000 parishioners as class-action defendants in the bankruptcy filing, made last year as the church struggled to respond to more than 200 claims of sexual abuse by priests.

thanks Amy.

Katrina: A Pork-free Recovery Plan?

The Center for Economic and Social Justice contacted me concerning their "proposal to finance the rebuilding of the areas affected by Katrina and Rita in a manner consistent with Catholic social teaching and without putting everything on the backs of the taxpayers."

I'm honored to be contacted. it will take some time to evaluate this - especially since it is outside my areas of expertise. Please read and leave comments if you wish.

This post linked to Beltway Traffic Jam

Katrina: Pork Addiction IV – Tom DeLay Secures the Supply Chain

On September 22 I observed that the root cause of the disaster in New Orleans was an addiction to Pork. Had federal funds been spent as intended, the flooding would have been less severe – or even non-existent. Local politicians diverted federal funds to other projects, even though they knew the potential destruction from a direct hit by a category four hurricane. Pork is just this: spending funds intended for legitimate purposes in order to make local politicians feel good.

Now we see that Representative Tom DeLay has been indicted for misusing campaign contributions. News stories and opinion columns will be dominated by the question of his guilt.

This debate should not distract us from another issue: DeLay’s contribution to the pork delivery system. As a politican, he plays hardball. As David Brooks points out in today’s NYT

The DeLay Era would be marked by one word: partisanship. Far from being a conservative ideologue, DeLay was a traditional Tammany Hall politician who would do whatever it took to put more Republican fannies in House seats. DeLay was never the ruthless tyrant news media reports made him out to be. He's actually a modest, decent and considerate man. But he is willing to sacrifice all else for the team.

(Thanks to Tim Worstall for the link.)

The problem isn’t that DeLay is a dedicated Republican, willing to use the rules to help his party win. The problem is that DeLay’s actions make it easier for the politicians to acquire, deliver, and prepare federal Pork. This is the charge that Dick Morris delivers in his column The Real Sin of Tom DeLay

In the reapportionments that followed the 2000 Census, the political parties in almost every state cooperated to draw the district lines to minimize the number of incumbents who would lose their seats. As a result, the number of House incumbents defeated in the post-Census elections has reached an all time low. In the elections following the 1980 census, 42 House members were defeated. In those after the 1990 election, 39 lost their seats. But after the 2000 census, only 16 members were defeated — half by other incumbents drawn into the same districts as a result of the shrinkage of the state population.

The result of DeLay's efforts is that the control of the House of Representatives has now been predetermined and taken out of the hands of the voters. No matter what happens nationally, the GOP will control the House until the 2010 reapportionment.

Once in place, our congress-critters (note the gender-neutral term) are secure. It is expensive to challenge an incumbent. It is almost impossible to dislodge a politician with his hands on the pork supply chains.

The Controversy over Ordaining Gay’s: This Explains a Lot

In his visits to our parish, Charlottesville resident and University of Virginia Faculty Religion Professor Gerald Fogarty, S.J. has touched on the difference between Roman and Anglo Saxon attitudes towards the law. Much of his bookThe Vatican and the American Hierarchy from 1870 to 1965 is about the history of misunderstandings between the two. This all came back to mind when I read John Allen’s At the Vatican, Exceptions Make the Rule in the New York Times on Tuesday. (My refusal to look at the NYT because it requires a $49 subscription for access to several parts of the paper was short lived.) Allen writes:

THE forthcoming Vatican document on gays in seminaries will unleash a wrenching debate about Catholicism and homosexuality, but one thing it is certain not to mean is that in the future there will be no gays in the priesthood. The continued presence of gays in the priesthood will be the product not just of difficulties in enforcement, or the dishonesty of potential candidates, but also of design.

Although this is a difficult point for many Anglo-Saxons to grasp, when the Vatican makes statements like "no gays in the priesthood," it doesn't actually mean "no gays in the priesthood." It means, "As a general rule, this is not a good idea, but we all know there will be exceptions."

Understanding this distinction requires an appreciation of Italian concepts of law, which hold sway throughout the thought world of the Vatican. The law, according to such thinking, expresses an ideal. It describes a perfect state of affairs from which many people will inevitably fall short. This view is far removed from the typical Anglo-Saxon approach, which expects the law to dictate what people actually do.

Katrina, Pork Addiction III - Sgt. Bilko Takes Over

Those of us old enough to remember the Phil Silvers Show know that many a zany plot started when Sgt. Bilko would say “In chaos there is profit.”

Sgt. Bilko , now busy in the halls of Washington, DC, must be thankful for the chaos left by Katrina and Rita.

In this morning’s WaPo Jeffery H. Birnbaum reports

With Congress dangling as much as $200 billion in hurricane-related aid, lobbyists for oil companies, airlines, manufacturers and others are clamoring to get their share.

Getting Unstuck from Stupid

There is a larger truth in Lieutenant General Russel Honore’s “stuck on stupid” remarks. Getting stuck on stupid becomes an obstacle to grace and to accomplishing the work we are given. Being stuck is a form of insanity, defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a better result.

Being stuck is a spiritual condition. There is a way to become unstuck. But first, lets look at the exchange between the blunt speaking General and newspaper reporters.

Katrina: Pork Addiction II

More examples of the root cause of the Katrinia / Rita disasters. We live in a harsh world, one in which disasters will come our way. The magnitude of suffering depends on our preparedness.

Some conservatives claim that our sufferings are due to sins against family values. Some liberals claim that they are due to sins against environmental values and racism.

Niether claim is true. Our sufferings are due to sins of omission – failure to prepare for a widely anticipated direct hit on New Orleans by a category five hurricane. The reason for these omissions is simple: our political culture is addicted to federal pork.

Here is an example of pork, misspent federal funds from Townhall columnist Mark Alexander

Lost: Chiastic Structure in “Man of Science, Man of Faith”

Has anyone else noticed the chiastic (crosswise) structure of the September 21st episode of Lost? John Locke, bearer of the philosopher’s name, believes that the Island is the embodiment of some mysterious higher power. Jack Shepherd, bearer of an apostle’s and divine names, believes that the answers will be found in human reason. By the end of the episode, Locke has apparently found that the object of his mystical quest is a creature of technology. The mysterious hatch that he opened was placed there and equipped with computers dating from the 1970’s. Jack, enters the hatch looking for technology. He meets a stranger who had told him to “lift up” his surgical failure. This failure, turned out to be a success: his patient walked and later married him.

ABC has crossed us up. The man of science discovers faith; the man of faith finds technology. It will be interesting to see how the story develops.

BTW, the David Ely who played a bit part as an intern is not our our David Ely

Katrina: Pork Addiction

Yesterday I started thinking about John Newton’s 1779 Hymm Amazing Grace. Somehow, the word Pork - as in federal funds – got substituted for Grace.

And Pork my fears postponed.
How precious did that Pork appear,
the hour I first believed.

I owe apologies to John Newton, for my paraphrasing of his magnificent 1779 hymn.

The suffering resulting from Katrina was a result of natural forces. I don’t believe that it was God’s punishment for the sins of New Orleans or of the nation. However, it does seem that the scale of the suffering was the result of sins of omission –failure to prepare – on the part of local, state and federal officials. The tragedy is that hundreds of thousands of citizens suffered for the omissions of a few.

The reason for this failure is simple. Our politicians are addicted to pork.

Katrina: High Level Failures and Corporate Initiative

You can now read John Tierney’s account of how Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club succeeded where FEMA and the Red Cross failed. Tim Worstal has posted the NYT John Tierney column so that you can read it here without being a Times Select Subscriber. John Tierney wrote:

If you mention the Red Cross or FEMA to people in Slidell, you hear rants about help that didn't arrive and phone lines that are always busy. If you mention state or national politicians, you hear obscenities.

But if you visit the Wal-Mart and the Sam's Club stores here, you hear shoppers who have been without power for weeks marveling that there are still generators in stock (and priced at $304.04). You hear about the trucks that rolled in right after the hurricane and the stuff the stores gave away: chain saws and boots for rescue workers, sheets and clothes for shelters, water and ice for the public.

Please give Tierney a read. His opinions, if headed, might help us avoid another disaster.

Thanks, Tim. I don’t know how you got around the Times Select subscriber only policy. As I wrote yesterday, I don’t object to the good old capitalist NYT trying to derive income from it’s columns. I just find that a $49.95 Times Select subscription is too expensive for the few items that I would read.