We are not the members of a democracy, Father. We are the members of an order.

I've mentioned many times that I don't like pope Ratzinger.

As a fallen catholic I've sort of decided that in most cases it doesn't matter what the catholic church does as long as they stay out of the rest of the world's business. Live and let live.

But condoms and AIDS prevention in Africa are very much the world's business. The pope is once again asserting a morally indefensible position and shaming the entire catholic church in the process.

I know individual catholics have nothing to do with that man assuming the throne of St. Peter. There are many, many catholics who disagree with the pope who've decided to keep their heads down and focus instead on making their communities better. I admire those people.

Nevertheless; I will not set foot in a catholic church until there's a different, less morally compromised man leading the church.

Last night was last night, and it's all there was, and it's all there is. There isn't going to be anything more between us.

Life is pretty good (though busy.) There are only three things making me bang my head on my desk today: politics, religion and sports. Other than those small things I haven't a care in the world.

With regards to politics the Lieberman vote yesterday by Senate Democrats has me seeing red. There are tons of theories as to the thinking of Reid and company to why they let Lieberman keep his chair. Many are willing to write it off simply to Senate collegiality. Others point to Ted Stevens' loss and the growing probability of hitting the magic 60 senators number (although the idea that Lieberman, not to mention Blue Dog Democratic senators, will vote the right way when is counts is beyond absurd.)

Personally, I subscribe to Jane Hamsher's opinion that the Democratic Senate just gave the base of the party the middle finger. Putting the base in our place after we all worked so tirelessly and donated so much to seeing Democrats increase numbers in the Senate and House and win the White House was the entire point of the Lieberman exercise. We can't let the moonbat rabble thing we're beholding to them or anything. They're sending us the message to not expect ANYTHING out of them even with Obama in the White House.

Yeah, well fuck you too Senator Reid.

While I'm on the subject of messages; many Catholic bishops are sending their flock the same message in light of the election results. 54% of Catholic voters went for Obama and these bishops are not happy.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is preparing a statement during the bishops' fall meeting that will press Obama on abortion.

The bishops suggested that the final document include the message that "aggressively pro-abortion policies" would be viewed "as an attack on the church."

Between the direct involvement of the church of LDS in the passage of Proposition 8 in California and the growing direct involvement of big churches in endorsing similar measures and candidates around the country I'm starting to feel a little victimized here myself.

We subsidize these churches through their tax-exempt status. I don't have a problem with that and consider it wholly constitutional. But when churches are engaging in the types of political advocacy we've seen lately, they're crossing a church-state line. Essentially they're taking my money and using it for something that, as in the case of Proposition 8, I violently disagree with.

Church leaders- take your tax-exempt status and shove it up your ass.

College football sent president-elect Obama and fans of the sport a message yesterday when the BCS signed a deal to move the broadcast of the bowl games from Fox to ESPN for the years 2011-2014. Besides the fact that this is a giant rasberry aimed at fans who don't subscribe to cable the real news here is this effectively locks in the stupid BCS system until that contract expires six years from now.

The end of the ESPN deal coincides with the date — 2014 — through which the B.C.S. commissioners have agreed to keep their current championship system in place. The commissioners met last April and considered a playoff proposal by Mike Slive, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, but voted against it and put off considering any changes until the end of the next television deal.

I can't think of any other sport where fans consistently root for the thing to go FUBAR so we can get rid of it as they do in college football with the BCS.

Dear BCS- message recieved. Now kiss my ass.

I think that's enough outrage for today.

Wooorse? Or better?

I'm not sure I see the point to this unless it's the Pope's goal to drive even more of us away from the Catholic church.

ROME, July 7 — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday authorized a wider use of the old Latin Mass, dismissing fears that its revival could divide the church or dilute the reforms of the Second Vatican Council that made standard worship in the languages of Catholics around the world.

In gentle but firm language, the pope acknowledged in an accompanying letter to bishops the depth of opposition to the change, voiced in recent months by European bishops and Jewish groups. He proposed, in fact, a review after three years to determine “if truly serious difficulties come to light.”

He's not diluting the Second Vatican Council. He's making it "better."

But the pope said that the change could both heal rifts with traditionalist groups that favor the Latin Mass as well as reconnect the church with a 1,500-year-old form of worship that faded since the Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965.

Rigggghhht. Because the Catholics that have fallen away that the church needs to bring back into the fold are the Mel Gibson/ Opus Dei/ Traditionalist nutjob variety and not the millions of other Catholics worldwide who've been dispossessed by a church increasingly more concerned with tradition rather than living the gospel.

Jackass.


**For those of you unfamiliar with the quote it's from one of the greatest, most subversive cartoons ever - "Invader Zim." Here's the context - Zim, who is entirely insane, has just un-banished himself from the planet "Foodcourtia" to join his fellow alien invaders in Operation Impending Doom 2. Operation Impending Doom 1 met utter failure when Zim went crazy on the invader's own planet and set most of the capitol on fire.

Zim- "I put the fires out.."
Red Tallest- "You made them worse!"
Zim- "Wooorse? Or better?"

We're off to Rome to see the Pope.

There's been a bunch of debate bouncing around the intertubes and the more traditional media about the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion focused on the make religious make-up of the majority in that opinion and what it means towards future cases before the court. Predictably; those that pooh-pooh each an every other claim of discrimination in our society are the first to trot out the discrimination defense when they feel the least bit wronged. In this case they're screaming that those who point out that the five majority members in that decision are catholic are somehow displaying an anti-catholic bigotry.

The well that those that defend the majority justices seem to always dip from is that of John Kennedy and his run for the presidency. Kennedy faced a lot of public criticism, mostly from protestant Evangelicals in a not so ironic twist, that a catholic president would be beholding to Rome if he were elected. In a 1959 Look magazine interview he responded to this criticism directly -

"Whatever one's religion in private life may be, for the office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state."

President Kennedy was flatly stating that his duty to the constitution would come before his duty to his religious beliefs. The criticism directed at the five catholic members of the court after the Carhart decision is that they were inverting that equation.

Finally- putting all that aside and focusing on diversity. Many of us do want the court to be more diverse but not under the simplistic equation religious conservatives have held us to. A female conservative, a black conservative and an Italian-American conservative do no diversity make. What we need on the USSC is intellectual diversity. Five of any group that subscribe strictly to a narrow, ideologically binding religious worldview is counterproductive towards those ends.

Why are you obsessed with fighting times and fates you can't defy?

It would be wonderful if there was a way to compare the views of those on the right who went bonkers at the worldwide riots that took place after that Danish cartoon depicting Mohammed was published to the growing imbroglio over the impending release of The Da
Vinci Code. I think it's a safe bet that many of those screaming bloody murder about "the religion of peace" going nuts over a cartoon are pretty much the same group of individuals that think Brown's work of fiction is a direct frontal assault on Christianity that has to be stopped at all costs.

I was flipping through the channels last week and wound up listening to a Christian Rock station for a minute and was fascinated by an ad for a seminar regarding the movie that would be taking place at a large local megachurch. "You may not be seeing the movie," the ad warned ominously, "but your friends and neighbors will and you'll need to know how to deal with their misconceptions about the book and movie."

As a reformed-Catholic the current political alliance between the Catholic church and our own protestant Evangelicals is fascinating. As I was growing up the idea that Evangelical Protestantism and Catholicism would mesh was insane. That little that the two movements shared in comment paled next to the vast differences in coda.

So I still find it odd that Protestants are so quickly willing to take up what, for all intensive purposes is the call for holy war against the movie. One explanation could be the shared self-martyrdom so much a part of the psychological make-up of Christian Conservatives today. There's little difference between the whining of a protestant James Dobson or a Catholic Cardinal Arinze when they blather about being under attack:

"Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget," Arinze said in the documentary made by Rome film maker Mario Biasetti for Rome Reports, a Catholic film agency specializing in religious affairs.

There is a tradition of sacrifice for the better of social good in Christianity. But protesting a movie just isn't in the same league as the actions of an Archbishop Romero of El Salvador standing up to a corrupt and evil regime that ultimately claimed his life. Nor does fighting to keep a brain-dead woman hooked up to life support equate to fighting to free slaves, sometimes at risk to life and liberty. Christian leaders devalue the true, just sacrifices made in the name of Christianity when they equate the trivial with the necessary. They aren't fighting demons, they're fighting shadows.