Catholic Priorities

A recent investigation by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--according to Angela Bonavoglia of The Nation this body serves as "the modern-day vestige of the Holy Office of the Inquisition"

After giving an obligatory nod to the sisters’ good works in schools, hospitals and social service agencies, the CDF devoted the remainder of its Doctrinal Assessment to attacking the sisters for failing to provide “allegiance of mind and heart to the Magisterium of the Bishops”; focusing on the “exercise of charity” instead of lambasting lesbians, gays, and women who use birth control or have an abortion; refusing to accept the ban on women’s ordination; allowing “dialogue” on contentious subjects; and tampering with the notion of God the “Father” while promulgating other “radical feminist” theological interpretations. The CDF’s solution: send in three men, an archbishop and two other bishops, to take control of LCWR for five years.
It's hard to think of a more effective combination of priorities to drive away thinking Catholics, and to drive away the relatively small number of nuns that remain. But then, who am I to judge the Catholics? I apparently share some of those same warped views as the nuns, especially that the primary mission of a church devoted to Jesus would be to work hard to emulate the teachings of Jesus rather than those things that were off his radar.

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Bonus clawbacks and fair play

Businessweek is reporting that JP Morgan is considering moving to "clawback" bonuses which had been awarded to executives and others responsible for Morgan's recent $2 BILLION dollar loss.:

The lender can cancel stock awards or demand they be repaid if an employee “engages in conduct that causes material financial or reputational harm,” JPMorgan said in its annual proxy statement. The company will claw back pay if it’s appropriate, said one of the executives, who asked not to be identified because no decisions have been made.
But wait! These big Wall Street firms told us that bonuses were untouchable after they blew up the economy in 2008. Am I the only one that remembers that? There was all sorts of bullshit about how these employees were simply too valuable, that if they didn't get their massive bonuses they would leave to seek other employment, that contracts and bonus structures were sacrosanct and untouchable (untouchability does not extend to unions and teachers, by the way). Oh, but I guess that was when taxpayers were paying the bonuses. Now that JP Morgan took a big hit in their own shorts, they want their money back. Funny how things change.

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Obama: I’m only the President of the United States.. My hands are tied.

Glenn Greenwald points out Barack Obama's hypocrisy when he asserts that he cannot stop the federal government from prosecuting sick people with prescriptions. He said everything but this (with sums up his idiotic position): "Sorry, but I'm only the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the United States." Here's an excerpt from Greenwald's insights on Obama's crackdown on medical marijuana:

"As an emailer just put it to me: “Interesting how this principle holds for prosecuting [medical] marijuana producers in the war on drugs, but not for prosecuting US officials in the war on terror. Or telecommunications companies for illegal spying. Or Wall Street banks for mortgage fraud.” That’s about as vivid an expression of the President’s agenda, and his sense of justice, and the state of the Rule of Law in America, as one can imagine. The same person who directed the DOJ to shield torturers and illegal government eavesdroppers from criminal investigation, and who voted to retroactively immunize the nation’s largest telecom giants when they got caught enabling criminal spying on Americans, and whose DOJ has failed to indict a single Wall Street executive in connection with the 2008 financial crisis or mortgage fraud scandal, suddenly discovers the imperatives of The Rule of Law when it comes to those, in accordance with state law, providing medical marijuana to sick people with a prescription."

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Pope perfume

I don't quite know what to say here, so I'll just report the facts. I've recently learned that the current Pope (who does not take a vow of poverty, unlike Catholic nuns) has paid to have a special cologne created for him:

Italian celebrity perfume-maker Silvana Casoli, has created her most heavenly scent yet for a very special client, Pope Benedict XVI. Known for creating a number of perfumes that can be used by both men and women with names like Chocolat Bambola (Chocolate doll) and Vanilla Bourbon, Casoli has designed unique fragrances for famous personalities like Madonna and Sting.

Stranger than fiction, right? Wouldn't you think that there are better things to spend money on? And it's just for the Pope:

Unlike other perfumes, the scent won't be sold to the public and is to only be worn by the Pope, explains Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.

I'm not the only one to find the story about Pope-cologne puzzling. Michael Morris, author of a website titled Funmentionables, has written an article he titled, "The Old Pope Smell," in which he pulls out quite a few Bible verses that mention perfume.

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Catholic clergy, obsessed about gay rights, again shoots itself in the foot.

I've known Charlie Robin for many years, so I was deeply saddened to hear that the Catholic Church retaliated against Charlie's partner, Al Fischer immediately after the pair announced that they were traveling to New York this week to get married. Al has done exemplary work as a music teacher at St. Ann Catholic School, a St. Louis grade school. For many years, Al and Charlie have been out in the open as a committed gay couple. When they recently announced that they were getting married, though, it was too much for the St. Louis Diocese. The Administration of the St. Ann Catholic School has been, and remains, supportive of the couple, but must now hire a new music teacher for the children, even though they already had a perfectly good music teacher. I was raised Catholic and I know a huge number of Catholics who are completely in support of gays getting married. The upper clergy are another matter, though. I'm not really angry about Al's firing, because this is the kind of thing I expect of the Catholic Church at this point, and I'm also delighted to see how supportive the local Catholic school has been of the relationship and proposed marriage. The Clergy, on the other hand appear to be engaged in classic groupthink, combined with a willingness to elevate a personal feeling of disgust into a dominant moral principle; and this is combined with a classic reaction formation--I've heard from many sources (including many men who were in the Catholic seminary) that a significant proportion of Catholic clergy are, themselves, gay. What should Catholics do in the meantime? That's certainly not for me to say, since I don't believe in any of the miraculous claims of the Bible. Then again, from my discussions with many Catholics, neither do many Catholics. What they do tend to believe in is coming together as a community to celebrating their community in song and ritual, as well as maintaining an admirable commitment to helping others in need through on-the-ground good works. It is in this context that the Catholic clergy displays its ugly vindictiveness. Perhaps this self-destructive decision by leadership of an ever-dwindling church will become a flashpoint for reform efforts in St. Louis, or even nationally.  Decisions like the firing of Al Fischer, combined with many other salient moral lapses of the Catholic clergy, help explain why one out of every 10 people in the United States (22,725,000) is an ex-Catholic. Not that any of this will sway the Pope, whose constant vitriolic rants against gays strongly suggest to me his own frustrated gayness. I often wonder whether and when large numbers of Catholics will start buying up abandoned Churches, and start their own churches. Then again, this animosity toward gays goes well beyond the Catholic Church. Rick Santorum, one of the front runners for the GOP has indicated that, if elected, he would work hard to pass laws to un-marry the 130,000 gay married couples in the United States. Such are these times . . .

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