Albany Catholic

Redistricting

2012-01-16T13:16:00.003-05:00

Redistricting continues to be an important issue for the people of New York State, as noted by the blog of the Commission on Peace and Justice, as well as some recent editorials.

The Saratogian has the following to say:

Cuomo has waffled on redistricting. Initially he said he would insist on an independent commission to draw new boundary lines. With legislators reneging on their promise to voters to empower such a panel, Cuomo recently has reserved the right simply to veto any outcome he considers unfair. Too bad. The people of New York have no reason to trust legislators with a clear self-interest in drawing the lines to benefit themselves, much less those who have gone back on their promises.

And from the Times Union:

They’re watching you, Governor Cuomo. You, too, all you influential state legislators. The most civic-minded of New York’s citizens aren’t letting you off the hook when it comes to overcoming the same old partisan politics in redrawing state Assembly and Senate district boundaries for this fall’s elections.
Oh, they’ve compromised, these folks known as goo-goos — short for good government groups. They may even have cut the politicians too much slack, as the legislative panel known as LATFOR prepares to impose its vision for the political map of New York upon the public.
But, no, the public interest lobby isn’t giving up.
By now, legislative redistricting should be in the secure hands of an independent commission. That, if you’re keeping score, was what everyone from the governor to a huge majority of legislators campaigned on in 2010.
So now the goo-goos — organized as ReShapeNY, which consists of Citizens Union, the state League of Women Voters and the New York Public Interest Research Group — offer a reasoned, last-ditch demand.
They want the district maps that LATFOR cooks up to be vetted by the sort of knowledgeable, independent-minded citizens who would be in charge by now, if only the politicians had lived up to their word.

Have you contacted your State legislators yet to express your opinion?

Tax Loopholes

2011-07-13T07:27:00.000-04:00

We believe that the state and nation could solved some of our financial difficulties by re-examining the various tax codes. Writing in the DealBook Column of the New York Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin offers “An Addition to the List of Tax Loopholes.”

Here’s another little-known group of tax code beneficiaries that he might want to add to the list: day traders and speculators who buy and sell futures contracts.

For years, futures contracts, which are essentially bets on the price of commodities, stock indexes and the like, have received a more favorable tax treatment than stocks. A trader who buys and sells an oil contract in less than a year — even in a matter of minutes — pays no more than a 23 percent tax on the profits.

Compare that with the bill for flipping shares of Google, General Electric or even a diversified mutual fund in the same time period. Those short-term investment gains are treated like ordinary income, meaning the rate can run as high as 35 percent.

“There are so many ways to attack the logic of it,” Warren E. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, said in an interview on Monday about of the futures tax break. “It doesn’t make sense.”

What does the tax loophole cost the federal government? Each year, the United States gives up roughly $2 billion in lost revenue, according to the Congressional Research Service, a federal agency.

That number may seem insignificant against the backdrop of the country’s $55 trillion state and local government debt, and federal debt which stands at about $14 trillion. But tax inequities like this start to add up when considered collectively. Based on data from the Office of Management and Budget, the United States could put another $20 billion in its coffers over 10 years if it taxed the investment gains of hedge funds and private equity executives as ordinary income. The so-called carried interest is treated like capital gains, which is taxed at a much lower rate. The corporate jet break amounts to about $2 billion to $3 billion in a decade.

Perhaps the tax break on futures contracts wouldn’t be so irksome if it simply helped farmers protecting the value of their corn crops, airlines dealing with the rising cost of oil or even individuals hedging the risks in their portfolio.

But the biggest beneficiaries seem to be day traders and speculators. Long-term investors account for only 20 percent of the activity in the commodities future market, according to a report published last week by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the industry regulator.

When I called Robert Green, a tax specialist whose clients include traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the hub of commodities futures contracts, he seemed genuinely taken aback.

“I’ve been dreading getting a call like this,” he said, apparently worried that any publicity of the tax break could put pressure on lawmakers to revisit the rule. “No one has shot something across the bow.”

The rest of the article is here.

Muslims in Western New York

2011-06-19T12:43:00.001-04:00

The Buffalo News recently reported on certain activities of Muslims in western New York:

Law enforcement officials in this region met in a joint press conference with the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York and publicly recognized and endorsed the role MPAC-WNY is playing in the security of the United States.

These include:

* Conducting training sessions for law enforcement and other government personnel. The sessions have introduced the personnel to Islamic principles and to the diversity within Islam, as well as providing tips on interviewing and techniques for effectively engaging that community.

* Acting as an effective interface between the Muslim community and the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

* Initiating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation executive seminar training, which makes the FBI more effective by strengthening the relationship between the bureau and the Muslim community.

* Delivering presentations and arranging open houses at mosques to introduce Islam to the broader community.

The entire story is here. It is nice to see that the good things done by our Muslim brothers and sisters are getting some media coverage.

Lack of civility

2010-12-14T19:37:00.003-05:00

Religion News Service reported last month on a poll that showed Americans of all faiths see a civility problem in U.S. politics:

Whether they rally behind Fox News’ Glenn Beck to “Restore Honor” or Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart to “Restore Sanity,” Americans agree on one thing: our political system has a civility problem.

Four out of five Americans, regardless of party or religious affiliation, think the lack of respectful discourse in our political system is a serious problem, according to a PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll released Thursday (Nov. 11).

The findings echo sentiments expressed by a range of religious leaders, including Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary and author of “Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World,” and Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Alarmed by the 2010 campaign season, which 4 in 10 Americans consider more negative than past elections, Mouw, Gutow and others are calling for a kinder, gentler tone—even on hot-button topics like Islamophobia, homosexuality or abortion.

“We’ve had heated public debates before, but the level of discourse in this campaign and even following the campaign has been atrocious,” Mouw said, citing as an example Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pledge to prevent President Obama’s reelection, as opposed to advocating for policy shifts.

“There’s a real hostility now, and Christians with very strong and more conservative convictions really don’t seem to be contributing much to a civil discourse and a calming of the heated discussions in the larger culture,” Mouw said.

The rest of the article is here.

Redistricting

2010-12-07T19:42:00.003-05:00

The Times Union this week had an editorial that struck us as timely and important:

It was just a month ago that dozens of New York legislators were breezing to re-election by making campaign promises that included a vow to transform the culture of state government. These would be the last elections, they vowed, in which the boundaries of individual legislative districts would be drawn by the very assemblymen and senators representing them.

Now, they should deliver. So, too, should a lame-duck governor who has been such an outspoken advocate of redistricting reform -- urged on by a governor-elect who also ran on a platform of radically changing the ways of state government.

Governor Paterson should call the Legislature back into session at once, so that it can begin to take the necessary action to make the 2012 elections infinitely more fair. Lawmakers of both houses and both parties should vote to entrust the authority to draw legislative districts to an independent commission before lines are drawn anew in time for those elections.

Several versions of legislation to do just that have been proposed already.

To read those versions, go here.

We Remember

2010-12-05T12:18:00.002-05:00

Cathleen F. Crowley of the Times Union has a nice article about yesterday’s memorial service for Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan:

Laurene O'Brien, of Clifton Park, was a suburban housewife living the typical American life when she heard about the death of four women she never knew. It changed her forever.

"It made me no longer able to be in that peaceful, suburban-life journey," said O'Brien, who had once been a missionary in Peru. "It called me back to my roots, to why I had gone to Peru in the first place ... to be more mindful of the poor."

On Saturday, O'Brien and two dozen people honored the 30th anniversary of the massacre of three nuns and a missionary in El Salvador. The service, which was held at Hubbard Interfaith Sanctuary at The College of Saint Rose, was sponsored by The Commission for Peace and Justice of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.

In 1980, Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan were serving the poor in El Salvador during a time of civil unrest. On the way home from the San Salvador airport, they were stopped at a roadblock and taken to a remote location where they were tortured, raped and killed on Dec. 2, 1980.

The rest of the article is here.

Agency adds to AIDS services

2010-12-04T20:28:00.001-05:00

From the latest issue of The Evangelist, the newspaper of the Albany diocese:

Catholic Charities AIDS Services of the Albany Diocese now serves patients with no medical insurance.

The agency was among 41 organizations that received grants from the AIDS Institute of the New York State Department of Health to provide supportive services to persons living with HIV and AIDS four months ago.

With a grant of $140,000, diocesan Catholic Charities has been able to expand its supportive case management services, add psychosocial services in rural areas of the Diocese and hire a Spanish interpreter to accompany patients to medical appointments. An annual grant of more than $180,000 will start next spring and last for four years.

Catholic Charities AIDS Services has been helping residents in 11 counties of the Diocese since the start of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Services have included intensive case management, community outreach and service access, emergency financial assistance and personal care items.

The rest of the article is here.

Memorial Service Saturday

2010-12-03T19:53:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of four U.S. churchwomen, Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Jean Donovan, who were brutally murdered in El Salvador in 1980. Dorothy, Maura and Ita were nuns, Jean was a layworker.

According to Catholic News Service:

El Salvador was experiencing civil unrest, repeated military coups and finally civil war. Amid the death squads and countless disappearances, the four churchwomen attempted to bring life to the communities they served.

Ita Ford wrote about her experience in El Salvador: "Am I willing to suffer with the people here, the suffering of the powerless? Can I say to my neighbors, 'I have no solutions to this situation; I don't know the answers, but I will walk with you, search with you, be with you.' Can I let myself be evangelized by this opportunity? Can I look at and accept my own poorness as I learn it from the poor ones?"

The Diocesan Commission on Peace and Justice will have a memorial of these brave women on Saturday, December 4 at noon in the Hubbard Interfaith Sanctuary at the College of Saint Rose, 959 Madison Avenue in Albany.

Savings for taxpayers

2010-09-04T07:50:00.002-04:00

The Buffalo News has an article about how fraud, abuse and, yes, simple mistakes, can cost taxpayers millions of dollars. An excerpt:

A city audit earlier this year discovered $2 million had been spent on health insurance for 170 deceased employees. Several of those employees, according to the audit, have been dead for four years.

We long have supported the idea that more needs to done to eliminate waste in government so that those taxpayers dollars can be used for programs and people who truly need them. You can read the rest of this interesting article here.

Help Bring Peace to the Holy Land

2010-04-04T20:45:00.001-04:00

What You Can Do to Help Bring Peace to the Holy Land!

Together with Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) raise your voice with others in support of bold and necessary U.S. leadership to achieve a just, durable, and comprehensive agreement to end the conflict in the Holy Land.

As Christians we are called to live at peace with our neighbors, to confront evil with justice, and to respect the dignity of every human being. The pain and suffering on both sides must end. Christians must help realize a better future for all Israeli and Palestinian children.

This is how you can work for peace in the Holy Land:

1. Stay informed by getting CMEP’s Action Alerts. Sign up today at www.cmep.org. CMEP will keep you current on developments in Washington.

2. Tell your elected officials what you want! It’s easy. Just be on the lookout for messages in your email inbox with “CMEP Action Alert” in the subject line, and let your representatives know what you want done.

3. Amplify your voice! Get others you know involved by forwarding this message to a friend: “I’m working with Churches for Middle East Peace to help bring an end to the conflict in the Holy Land. I hope you will add your email address to CMEP’s advocacy network by visiting their website www.cmep.org.”

4. Build community and stay educated! Come to CMEP’s annual Advocacy Conference. Meet people there like you who want to tell their Members of Congress and their staff to work for peace. And then do it! CMEP’s next Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C. is June 13-15, 2010.

You can learn more here.

Catholic Conference Legislative Agenda

2010-02-06T09:10:00.001-05:00

The New York State Catholic Conference has posted its 2010 Legislative Agenda here. The following selection is from the introduction:

In his new encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, “To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbors, the more effectively we love them.”

One of the ways we as Bishops attempt to fulfill this requirement is through the work of the New York State Catholic Conference, which exists for the very purpose of pursuing justice by working within the legislative arena. The Conference helps to shape public policies that protect and enhance the dignity of all people, from the very beginning of life until the natural end. Such work must not be left to the Catholic Conference alone; all Catholics have a duty to be engaged in the public square and to put the common good ahead of party politics. Catholic teaching cannot be labeled or dismissed as simply conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. In all things, we must ask, “Does this policy enhance the dignity of the poor, the vulnerable, the sick, the elderly, children, the imprisoned, those least among us?” For as our Lord taught us, what we do to these, we do to Him.

While policy issues can often be complex, our guiding principles are not. Thankfully, the Church has outlined seven easy-to-understand principles of Catholic Social Teaching that guide us in the formation of our positions on public policy matters. They are:

Respect for the Life and Dignity of the Human Person
A Call to Family, Community and Participation
Recognition of Human Rights and Responsibilities
Special Concern for the Poor and Vulnerable
The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
Solidarity With Our Brothers and Sisters
Care for God’s Creation

Examining issues through the lens of these principles provides clarity in what can often be an overwhelming, bewildering and contentious process. In a very real way, we give glory to God when we put these principles to work in our society. The Catholic community brings an important voice to the policy arena, speaking for those who are frequently voiceless. Our methods of advocacy must be characterized by civility and respect, and we call upon all involved in shaping policy to put aside petty differences and party politics to work together to address the genuine needs of the people of our state.

Nuclear Abolition

2009-10-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

Dr. Lawrence S. Wittner will discuss The Necessity of Nuclear Abolition at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27 at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 35 Adams Place in Delmar. The program is sponsored by the parish chapter of Pax Christi.

Dr. Wittner is an award-winning American historian who has written extensively on peace movements and American foreign policy. He is the editor, or co-editor of four books and the author of seven other books and about 200 articles and book reviews. He also is a Steering Committee member of Upper Hudson Peace Action and serves on the National Board of Peace Action.

Work of Human Hands

2009-10-12T07:18:00.002-04:00

The Diocesan Commission on Peace and Justice is now working with local churches to present the annual Work of Human Hands sale. All of the items being sold are “fairly traded,” which means that we participate in a system that not only aims to pay fair wages, but also creates long-term, direct trading relationships with farmers and artisans around the world based on dialogue, transparency, equity and respect. Fair trade is not about charity; it uses a fair system of exchange to empower producers to develop their own businesses and to foster sustainable development. We follow a set of internationally-accepted fair trade principles and practices that are designed to improve the livelihood of low-income people through alternative trade, including:

Commitment to fair pay for labor

Equal opportunity for women

Concern for the environment

Respect for cultural identity

Reasonable working conditions

No child exploitation

Here is the schedule of sales for the rest of the year:

Work of Human Hands 2009 Schedule

Oct. 17 & 18 -- St. Joseph’s Greenwich (open to the public)

Oct. 24 & 25 -- St. Clare’s, Colonie
St. Joseph’s, Schenectady

Oct 26 & 27 -- Pastoral Center

Oct. 31 & Nov. 1 -- Immaculate Conception, Glenville
Our Lady of Grace, Ballston Lake
St. Henry’s, Averill Park

Nov. 7 & 8 -- Our Lady of Fatima, Niskayuna
Holy Spirit, East Greenbush
Assumption/St. Paul, Mechanicville
St. Michael’s, Troy

Nov. 14 & 15 -- St. Edward’s, Clifton Park
St. Joseph’s, Scotia
St. Catherine of Siena, Albany
Our Lady of Fatima, Delanson

Nov. 21 & 22 -- St. Therese, Gansevoort
St. Clement’s, Saratoga Springs
Sacred Heart, Castleton

Dec. 5 & 6 -- St. Vincent de Paul, Albany
St. John the Baptist, Valatie
St. Matthew’s, Voorheesville

Dec. 10 & 11 -- Pastoral Center

Dec. 12 & 13 -- St. Thomas the Apostle, Delmar
St. John’s/St. Ann’s, Albany

Dec. 19 & 20 -- St. Peter’s, Saratoga Springs

Global economy imperils Earth, humanity

2009-10-02T20:12:00.001-04:00

Last spring, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns invited Maryknoll missioners, affiliate groups and others to take part in a reflection process on the connections between our faith, ecology and the global economy. The thoughtful reflections from around the world have been crafted into a new statement entitled “Global economy imperils Earth, humanity,” which begins:

With nearly 100 years experience in joining our lives with communities and people throughout the world, Maryknoll missioners discovered something that others were able to realize only after seeing Earth photographs that astronauts took from space. We are one humanity interconnected with all matter on a tiny planet within a vast, expansive universe. We are challenged now to act quickly to rescue Earth and its inhabitants from destruction and extinction.

At the heart of the current global social and ecological crises is an economic system that tries to lock interconnected societies into unsustainable patterns of production, over-consumption and waste generation, all driven by the mandate to grow. To date this growth-driven economic model has proven to promote overgrowth in some areas while leaving vulnerable populations with no benefits of development.

Therefore, the Maryknoll community respectfully urges that:

You will have to go here to discover those recommendations.

Cafeteria Catholics

2009-07-11T10:02:00.001-04:00

Over at The American Conservative magazine, John Schwenkler writes about Cafeteria Catholics:

Joe Carter asks how Catholics determine whether and to what extent they’re obligated to concur with papal encyclicals. If I may be permitted a moment of deepest cynicism, the obvious answer is that it depends on how nicely the relevant teachings comport with their partisan political affiliations and other preexisting biases, which is how we end up with the oh-so-unsurprising spectacles of predominantly Republican frequent churchgoers being among the most prominent supporters of torture, left-liberal Catholics preaching about the “seamless garment” as a way to justify prioritizing health insurance mandates over laws protecting the unborn, and alleged conservatives who were openly dismissive of Vatican condemnations of the Iraq war going on about Ex Corde and Evangelium Vitae while approaching papal articulations of Catholic social teaching – which seems as good a candidate as any for the second conjunct of the “faith and morals” criterion – with a hermeneutic of suspicion and a deconstructionist’s bicolored pen. (“[S]pinning so fast … I would be surprised if they haven’t fallen over a few times already” was Caleb Stegall’s apt description of the recent antics from the FT crowd; I would just add that simply watching the twirling is going to leave me motion-sick.) It’s a sad, sorry excuse for humility and prophetic witness, and while I’d love to see the Vatican attempt to combat it by issuing some strongly-worded official statements on the spiritual dangers of excessive partisan identification, the problem of course is that no one would bother to listen.

The rest of the entry, and the comments, can be read here.

Former papal theologian praises Obama's 'realism,'

2009-07-03T18:38:00.004-04:00

John L. Allen, Jr., writing in National Catholic Reporter, reports that "an influential cardinal and Vatican adviser has praised Obama’s 'humble realism' and compared the president’s approach to abortion to the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas and early Christian tradition about framing laws in a pluralistic society."

We might ask, "Who saw that coming?"

The full article is here. Here is an excerpt:

Swiss Cardinal George Cottier, 87, former theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, laid out those views in a cover essay in the current issue of 30 Giorni, perhaps the most widely read journal of Catholic affairs in Italy.

Styled as an analysis of two Obama speeches – his May 17 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame and his June 4 speech to the Islamic world in Cairo – Cottier’s essay was overwhelmingly positive, repeatedly arguing that Obama’s “realism”, as well as his commitment to finding “common ground”, resonate with Christian tradition and the social teaching of the Catholic church.

Seen through American eyes, perhaps the most striking element was Cottier’s analysis of what Obama had to say at Notre Dame. The university’s decision to invite Obama, and to award him an honorary degree, were widely criticized in Catholic circles in the States, given Obama’s positions on abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other life issues. More than 80 bishops publicly objected to the event.

Cottier, however, compared Obama’s Notre Dame address to Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, in its accent on dialogue and common ground, and to the document Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) on conducting the search for truth in a pluralistic society. Christians, Cottier wrote, “can be in agreement” with Obama’s “way of framing the search for solutions.”

Climate change

2009-05-16T09:00:00.003-04:00

First of all, thanks to those who inquired about our absence from the scene. We are back now and ready to continue.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is a lay Catholic organization that promotes increased awareness of Catholic Social Teaching through the media and provides opportunities for Catholics and citizens of good will to advance the common good in the public square. They send along the following:

What does climate change have to do with the common good? A lot. The current environmental crisis affects us all, but especially those enduring poverty. Whether our neighbors here and around the world live in lands subject to erosion, can only afford to inhabit polluted areas or do not have the economic means to protect themselves from ecological calamities, the most vulnerable among us are profoundly affected by the global environmental crisis.

As people of faith called to be good stewards of God's creation, we must ensure that our elected officials make political and economic choices that reflect proper care for the earth and respect the dignity of all people.

Help make a difference. Learn more about how you can take action to protect the environment and give voice to the particular needs of "the least among us." Check out the links to the following organizations and start making your voice heard. And be sure to share this email with 10 of your friends!

Franciscan Campaign on Climate Change is organizing Franciscan and Franciscan-hearted persons (people who are inspired by the witness and example of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi) to participate in the Catholic Climate Covenant. Right now they are organizing Congressional visits over the Memorial Day Recess. All are welcome to participate.

Catholic Climate Covenant is an effort supported by more than a dozen Catholic organizations to increase the visibility of the Church in addressing climate change. They are encouraging organizations, parishes, families and individuals to take the St. Francis Pledge to pray, learn, assess, act and advocate.

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns is working to raise greater awareness about the connections between our economic choices and environmental consequences. Maryknoll is taking action to bring sustainability to both areas of our life with a particular emphasis on caring for persons who are poor.

What Would Jesus Buy?

2008-12-10T19:31:00.000-05:00

What Would Jesus Buy?

Saturday, December 20, at 7:30 PM.

This comic documentary follows the Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the destruction of the world through consumerism and the fires of eternal debt! The Reverend Billy takes us into the heart of America—exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters, seizing the center stage at the Mall of America, and heading to the Promised Land (Disneyland). Don't miss this hilarious critique of corporate culture and globalization!

The film-showing—-cosponsored by Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace and Upper Hudson Peace Action—-will take place at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, located at 405 Washington Avenue (across the street from the downtown SUNY campus). Admission is free. Refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome. Please invite your friends and carpool.

Capitalism and religion

2008-11-07T07:22:00.003-05:00

The latest edition of Commonweal has an article on capitalism and religion which notes:

When laissez-faire economists believe in God, they are usually certain that he is one of them. The invisible hand of the market is, they think, also the hand of Divine Providence, which anoints and protects those who manage to provide for themselves.
. . .
The Catholic Church has always taught that the proper alternative to bad government is good government. Sometimes this means less government, sometimes more. In Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes we read that “political authority...must always be exercised within the limits of the moral order and dedicated toward the common good.... The complex circumstances of our day make it necessary for the public authority to intervene more often in social, economic, and cultural matters.” According to the church, negative freedom alone is insufficient. A government that refrains from mistreating its own citizens but makes little effort to keep them from mistreating each other-or to keep their pursuit of conflicting goals from leading to injustice-is not doing its job.

In light of the current fiscal picture in New York and the rest of the nation (and the world) Albany Catholic highly recommends you read the rest of this article.

Is abortion THE issue?

2008-10-31T13:07:00.003-04:00

E.J. Dionne Jr., the Catholic columnist at The Washington Post, writes about how different bishops are responding to that question:

It has become commonplace in American politics: Certain Roman Catholic bishops declare that the faithful should cast their ballots on the basis of a limited number of "nonnegotiable issues," notably opposition to abortion. Conservative Catholics cheer, more liberal Catholics howl. And that is usually the end of the story.

Not this year. Catholics, who are quintessential swing voters and gave narrow but crucial support to President Bush in 2004, are drifting toward Barack Obama. And this time, some church leaders are suggesting that single-issue voting is by no means a Catholic commandment.

In an interview on Monday, Gabino Zavala, an auxiliary bishop in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, said his fellow bishops have long insisted that "we're not a one-issue church," a view reflected in their 2007 document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship."

"But that's not always what comes out," says Zavala, who is also bishop-president of the Catholic peace group Pax Christi USA. "What I believe, and what the church teaches, is that one abortion is too many. That's why I believe abortion is so important. But in light of this, there are many other issues we need to bring up, other issues we should consider, other issues that touch the reality of our lives."

Those issues, Bishop Zavala said, include racism, torture, genocide, immigration, war and the impact of the economic downturn "on the most vulnerable among us, the elderly, poor children, single mothers."

"We know that neither of the political parties supports everything the church teaches," he added. "We are not going to create a culture of life if we don't talk about all the life issues, beginning with abortion but including all of them."

Zavala was careful to say that he did not want to take issue with any of his fellow bishops. But his view contrasts with that of others in the hierarchy.

Earlier this month, for example, Bishop Joseph Martino of the Scranton (Pa.) Diocese issued a letter warning that "being 'right' on taxes, education, health care, immigration, and the economy fails to make up for the error of disregarding the value of a human life." He added: "It is a tragic irony that 'pro-choice' candidates have come to support homicide — the gravest injustice a society can tolerate — in the name of 'social justice.' "

Bishop Zavala's desire to speak out with an alternative view is a sign of how much has changed in four years: Progressive Catholics are now as organized as conservative Catholics were in 2004. At Web sites such as prolifeproobama.com, they are arguing that the abortion question does not trump all other concerns

Albany Catholic suggests you read the entire article, here.

A special Veteran's Day presentation

2008-10-29T20:36:00.002-04:00

Capital Repertory Theatre

in collaboration with The American Place Theatre

presents:

Tim O’Brien’s

The Things They Carried

Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, Capital Repertory Theatre is staging a special evening performance of The American Place Theatre’s production of Tim O’Brien’s masterwork of contemporary literature and Vietnam War remembrance. Adapted in collaboration with the author, this production is a searing 60 minute monologue selected verbatim from the novel that takes the audience through a harrowing journey with its young inductee.

Immediately following the performance, take the opportunity to reflect on the work on stage by staying for a panel discussion with combat veterans:

Ed Bloch, U.S. Marine Corp combat veteran, WWII -- Currently a member of Veterans for Peace, President of the NYS Council of Veterans Organization, Director of the Regional Chapter of the Inter-faith Alliance.

Terry Kindlon, U.S. Army combat veteran, Vietnam War -- Criminal defense lawyer, currently partner in Kindlon, Shanks, and Associates, frequent op-ed contributor on issues of war and peace.

Scott Ritter, U.S. Marine Corp, Intelligence Analyst, Persian Gulf War; U.N. Weapons Inspector -- Internationally recognized speaker on issues of U.S security, foreign policy and the Middle East; author of Waging Peace: the Art of War for the Anti-War Movement.

Tyler Boudreau, U.S. Marine Corp combat veteran, Iraq War -- Author of Packing Inferno: the Unmaking of a Marine and founder of Iraq War Veterans for Iraq Refugees.

Moderator: Mary Darcy, former host and producer of NPR’s nationally syndicated award winning 51%’ -- Currently owner/editor of Alloveralbany. com

SEATING IS LIMITED

To Reserve Your Seats Call The Capital Rep Box Office Today

518.445.SHOW

$20 General Admission / $15 for veterans, subscribers, and students

Assembly -- Blanchfield and Amadore

2008-10-12T22:53:00.002-04:00

The Times Union blog Capital Confidential reports on recents ads involving candidates for the State Assemlby:

Business Review: Stop using our video

The Business Review has posted a story about how it has demanded 105th Assembly Democratic candidate Mark Blanchfield stop using a Review video in Blanchfield’s attack TV and radio ads against Assembly Republican incumbent George Amedore.

The newspaper was contacted earlier in the day about such rumors, but had no comment. The Internet story was posted at 2:24 p.m.

The video, filmed of the Review’s top 40 under 40 business people, shows Amedore talking about his home building business, and his first year in the Assembly. Amedore’s campaign has protested that the clip is unfairly edited to make it sound like Amedore isn’t committed to his elected post. The ad quotes Amedore as saying he doesn’t look at the Assembly position as a job. The rest of the statement, which can be seen on You Tube, shows him adding that he looks at the Assembly seat as serving the community.

“The Business Review owns the exclusive copyright in the 2008 “Forty Under 40” video,” said Business Review Publisher Carolyn Jones in the article. “Our newspaper never granted Mr. Blanchfield permission to use the video for any purpose, including for a commercial for his political campaign.”

“We have demanded that Mr. Blanchfield cease the use of the video immediately,” Jones said in the story.

Commission on Peace and Justice

2008-10-12T09:44:00.003-04:00

The Diocesan Commission on Peace and Justice has a blog. (Who knew?)
The blog:

is participating in Blog Action Day, an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion: this year the issue is poverty. Between now and October 15, we will be posting about poverty in our diocese, with material provided by Catholic Charities in its report Poverty in the Diocese of Albany: A Threat to the Common Good." The report, and additional information, is available here.

Albany Catholic hopes you will share the link to the Commission's blog with your friends and parishioners. Of course, if you also choose to share ours, we wouldn't object.

Ralph Nader

2008-10-10T07:04:00.001-04:00

Lest we be accused of favoring one candidate over another, we note that Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader will be in Albany next Thursday.

Thursday, October 16th
7:30 p.m.
Nader/Gonzalez Rally
The Egg
Empire State Plaza (Albany NY)
Suggested Contribution: $10/$5 students

More information: Albanygreens@yahoo.com

Registering to vote

2008-10-05T18:53:00.002-04:00

Friday, October 10, is the last day to register to vote. The Board of Elections lists the qualifications for voting:

* be a United States citizen;

* be 18 years old by December 31 of the year in which you file this form (note: you must be 18 years old by the date of the general, primary or other election in which you want to vote);

* live at your present address at least 30 days before an election;

* not be in jail or on parole for a felony conviction and;

* not claim the right to vote elsewhere.

You can call 1-800-FOR-VOTE to request a voter application.

NYS Bishops Release Statement on Voting

2008-10-02T19:10:00.002-04:00

We received the following from the New York State Catholic Conference:

Catholic Bishops Release Statement on Voting and Political Responsibility

Edward Cardinal Egan and the Catholic Bishops of New York State have issued an appeal to Catholic New Yorkers, urging them to vote in the coming general election. In a statement entitled Our Cherished Right, Our Solemn Duty , the bishops present a list of questions on important issues for voters to consider as they inform their consciences in preparation for entering the voting booth.

In the statement, the bishops warn against voting solely out of party loyalty or self interest. Instead, they wrote, Catholics should be guided by the Gospel teachings of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church on social issues. While noting that there are many issues of great importance facing the country, the protection of human life rises above all other issues, the bishops said. "The right to life is the right through which all others flow," they wrote. "To the extent candidates reject this fundamental right by supporting an objective evil, such as legal abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research, Catholic should consider them less acceptable for public office."

In the statement, the bishops stressed that voters have an obligation not only to learn the positions of the presidential candidates, but of all of the candidates, including those running for the state legislature. "Many of the most compelling moral issues of the day play out at the state level," they wrote.

The bishops presented questions on issues related to the right to life, parental rights in education, protecting marriage, immigration reform, access to health care, protecting the poor and religious liberty.

Please remember to vote on November 4.

The statement can be read here.

Ad Watch

2008-09-25T20:25:00.002-04:00

Today's Times Union has the first of an occasional feature on the ads that our politicians run. The first deals with Sandy Treadwell's ad accusing Kirsten Gillibrand of voting "to impose the largest tax increase in history." The TU reports:

Analysis: Treadwell's ad misrepresents the facts. Gillibrand did not vote to impose "the largest tax increase in history" during June's roll call vote No. 382, referenced in the ad. Gillibrand voted to support a non-binding budget resolution, which serves as a blueprint for how Congress will appropriate money moving forward.

As part of the budget resolution, Congress made the assumption that most of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts passed under the Bush administration will be allowed to expire in 2011. The expiration has been included in every budget resolution since the cuts went into effect.

There is more to this story, which Albany Catholic recommends you read, here.

Albany Catholic knows Sandy, and has great respect for him and his work, which makes this advertisement more than a little disappointing. We will keep you posted on Ms. Gillibrand's ads as reports develop.

Just like Albany?

2008-09-18T19:36:00.002-04:00

Newsday's blog has an interesting item today:

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi was speaking to a group of Baldwin residents Tuesday night and asked for a show of hands on some options for a plot of vacant land.

“Can I vote twice?” one woman asked Suozzi.

“Only if you live in Long Beach,” Suozzi answered.

He returned to the theme later, saying without any apparent provocation that his father asked to be buried in Long Beach because, “he wanted to remain active in politics after his death.”

The link is here.
Albany Catholic remembers stories of dead Democrats voting in Albany. William Kennedy, in his wonderful book "Oscar" comments on the practice: Just 'cause they're dead don't make them Republicans. (Or something to that effect.)

Single-payer health reform

2008-09-09T06:58:00.001-04:00

A reader sends the following:

Saturday, September 13th, in Albany, we will launch Single Payer New York, a grassroots coalition of organizations and individuals to work together in New York state for single-payer health reform, both state and federal. An amazing diversity of single-payer advocates have responded with plans to attend.

"The Truth about Healthcare Road Show" will start the day. Donna Smith will speak at 10 am. It will be the 9th of 10 traveling meetings across New York State
. . .
A panel discussion Saturday morning, concluding at noon, will include Dr. Mary O'Brien, Mike Keenan, Don Bechler, Jackie Wolf and Diane Stein, Dr. Paul Sorum and Ryan McIntyre (AMC '11).

Dr. Mary O'Brien will speak. Her new book "10 Excellent Reasons for National Healthcare," co-edited with Dr. Martha Livingston, has just been released.
. . .
The New York State AFL-CIO convention in August voted unanimously to endorse HR 676. Mike Keenan, President of the Troy Area Labor Council, will also speak on labor and single payer.
. . .
The meeting will be hosted by medical students from Student Perspectives and Activism and Physicians for a National Health Program. We look forward to participation from students from other medical schools too. Nurses and doctors will participate in the meeting, with the New York State Nurses Association and Physicians for a National Health Program well-represented. Labor leaders and activists will be coming from across New York State as will faith-based advocates. Interest is building and we expect participants from Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Ithaca, Binghamton, Schenectady, Saratoga, Kingston, Sullivan County, Long Island and New York City, and other places across the state!
. . .
The afternoon sessions on Saturday, from 1 to 4pm, will convene activists to set forth a grassroots organizing strategy, for geographic outreach, legislative action and working with different constituent groups to build an unbeatable movement for single-payer health reform.

Saturday September 13th
SINGLE PAYER NEW YORK
10am to 4pm
43 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY
Albany Medical College
Building ME Room 700

Free Parking in the Blue Lot directly in front of the medical school.

Community organizing -- Take 3

2008-09-08T20:10:00.001-04:00

A reader sent us the following:

Just remember that Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

Clean energy

2008-09-08T07:09:00.001-04:00

The Natural Resources Defense Council sent us the following:

In the midst of sky-high energy prices, America faces an important opportunity to solve many of our biggest challenges – global warming, energy security and an economic downturn -- with the development of a clean energy economy. We can create millions of high-paying jobs to make fuel-efficient cars, retrofit our buildings with energy-efficient materials and develop renewable energy that will help power our homes while reducing global warming pollution.

Want to learn more? Come to an exciting public forum on September 10th to find out how America can re-energize its economy through the development of clean energy technologies.

Featured speakers, who will be answering your questions, include:
** Richard Cataldo, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
** Bruce Herman, Deputy Commissioner, New York State Department of Labor
** Jeff Jones, New York State Apollo Alliance
** Ed Murphy & Lava Thimmayya, Workforce Development Institute
** Norreida Reyes, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter
** Barbara Warren, Citizens' Environmental Coalition

== When and Where ==
Wednesday, September 10
6:30-9:30pm
New York State United Teachers Building (auditorium)
800 Troy-Schenectady Road
Latham
Refreshments will be served

The event is sponsored by NRDC, the New York State Apollo Alliance, Workforce Development Institute of New York, Citizens' Environmental Coalition and other members of the Blue-Green Alliance, including the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers.

International Day of World Peace

2008-09-07T09:58:00.002-04:00

The United Nations' International Day of Peace - marked every year on September 21 - is a global holiday when individuals, communities, nations and governments highlight efforts to end conflict and promote peace.

Established by U.N. resolution in 1982, "Peace Day" has grown to include millions of people around the world who participate in all kinds of events, large and small.

Our friends at Pax Christi offer some tips:

* a special prayer for peace as part of your Sept 21st worship service

* a prayer service for peace at a special time/space in your community

* a “concert for peace” with community volunteer talent

* a banner and/or bulletin announcement on the International Day of Peace

* a “teach-in” on reconciliation and healing for your community

* a “poetry for peace” reading or contest

* ringing of church bells at 12 Noon, Sept 21 as a call to peace

* inviting the community to a moment of silence beginning at noon

More information is availabe on the UN website here.

More on community organizers

2008-09-06T18:56:00.001-04:00

Jim Wallis writes in his blog, God’s Politics:

Then Wednesday night I heard Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin say that her experience as "a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." The convention crowd in St. Paul thought that was very funny. But it wasn't. It was actually quite insulting to the army of community organizers who work in the most challenging places across the country and have such a tremendous impact on the everyday lives of millions of people. I guess Palin and her fellow Republican delegates don't know much about that. The "actual responsibilities" of community organizers literally provide the practical support, collective strength, and hope for a better future that low-income families need to survive,

Community organizers are now most focused in the faith community, working with tens of thousands of pastors and laypeople in thousands of congregations around the country. Faith-based organizing is the critical factor in many low-income communities in the country's poorest urban and rural areas, and church leaders are often the biggest supporters of community organizers.

The rest of this interesting blog entry is here.

Community organizers

2008-09-06T13:59:00.002-04:00

Joe Klein of Time magazine wrote in the magazine’s blog:

This morning, I received a press release from a group called Catholic Democrats about the work--the mission, the witness--that Obama performed after he got out of college. Here's the first paragraph:

Catholic Democrats is expressing surprise and shock that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's acceptance speech tonight mocked her opponent's work in the 1980s for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. She belittled Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer in Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago, work he undertook instead of pursuing a lucrative career on Wall Street. In her acceptance speech, Ms. Palin said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." Community organizing is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching to end poverty and promote social justice.

So here is what Giuliani and Palin didn't know: Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work--the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a "task from God.")

Albany Catholic suggests you read the entire entry here.

Employee Free Choice Act

2008-09-01T07:38:00.002-04:00

Writing in the Voices of Faith column in Saturday's Times Union, Bill Peltz, a member of the Executive Committee of the Labor-Religion Coalition of the Capital District, states:

To mark Labor Day every year, the coalition picks one issue as its advocacy focus for Labor Day for its Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar program.

This year, it's the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which is aimed at removing what organized labor sees as obstacles to union organizing that have developed during recent decades.

Naturally, it's a contentious issue. Business groups attack the bill for doing away with the secret ballot for workers' votes on union recognition. Labor groups support it as a way to repair what they consider to be employer domination of the broken ballot process. Adult study groups and peace and justice committees are good forums to debate the pros and cons of the legislation. Those who agree with it might want to sign a postcard of support as part of the national coalition's campaign.

For this Monday and for all of September as an extended Labor Month, we ask you to pray for working people, especially low-wage earners and those who are exploited, both at home and abroad. Ask questions about how workers are treated. Speak up in support of working people who are seeking respect and a voice in their work.

Contact the coalition's coordinator, Marjorie DeVoe, at 482-5595 or lrcofcd@gmail.com for a speaker and information on the Employee Free Choice Act. We'll be distributing and collecting the postcards for the rest of the year to give to the new president in January.

Albany Catholic suggests you read the entire column here and then make arrangements for a speaker at your parish.

New York's harvest of shame

2008-08-27T06:47:00.002-04:00

That is the headline on an editorial which the New York Daily News wrote in support of New York's farmworkers.

Gov. Paterson minces no words in declaring that New York farmworkers deserve the same labor rights as everyone else, including a 40-hour week, overtime pay, a day off per week and the right to organize and bargain collectively.

The other day, Paterson recalled his support as a legislator for full labor rights for field hands, and said growers "are running a system ... analogous to what it was in 1880."

He has no animus toward the state's growers, having approved $40 million in aid to them. But, he said, "We're going to come back and start talking to them about wages that were fought for in 1910." Way to go, gov.

Albany Catholic recommends that you read the entire editorial, which is available here.

Million Doors for Peace

2008-08-24T09:10:00.001-04:00

National Day of Action: Be part of one of the most ambitious and innovative anti-war activities to date!

On Saturday, September 20 thousands of volunteers across the U.S. will knock on a Million Doors for Peace.

Volunteer door-knockers will ask people to sign an antiwar petition directed to Congress. Our message? End this immoral war, bring our troops home, and invest in America's future. In addition, we will encourage people to join local anti-war groups and engage in Get out the Vote work.

In order to reach a million people in a single day, the coalition will activate at least 25,000 volunteers in all 50 states. Peace groups have never implemented such an elaborate communication and organizing plan before now, but with new and traditional communications tools available, the coalition anticipates success with this groundbreaking, grassroots project.

We will provide trainings and training materials, petitions, walk map for your preferred canvass area, and handouts

SOA Watch is joining with United for Peace and Justice, US Action/True Majority, Win Without War, MoveOn and other organizations to make this day a success.

Click here to participate in the canvass.

Abortion and Obama

2008-08-18T06:42:00.001-04:00

John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., writing in America magazine, offers some suggestions to Senator Obama on reducing the number of abortions.

1. Support the Rev. Jim Wallis’s “abortion-reduction agenda,” with its economic support for pregnant women and greater access to adoption as part of the Democratic platform.

2. If you are interested in diversity and mutual respect, give a place at the Democratic convention for Democrats for Life to show you are unafraid of difference and debate.

3. Engage the arguments and evidence offered in opposition to second- and third-trimester abortions. You may find that the position of most American men and women is quite different from Naral’s. The earlier stages of embryonic and fetal development are more contested. But even your Republican opponent supports embryonic stem cell research. Ask him, and all the Catholics who will vote for him, how this fits into their professed commitments.

Perhaps you owe some courageous people like Douglas Kmiec a bit of reciprocation. Kmiec, a pro-life Catholic law professor who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, announced his support of you because of your approach to war, poverty and immigration. Because of this stand, he has been denied Communion at least once. Are you willing to risk excommunication from the church of Naral for a principled position on abortion?

Maybe they will call you that terrible name “flip-flopper.” But remember this: anyone who refuses to change a judgment in the face of irrefutable data is either a fool or a toady. And you, clearly, are neither. As I see you move more and more to the middle in matters of the economy and the war in Afghanistan, I wait. Will you move a bit to the middle on this matter of abortion?

A vociferous cadre in the Democratic Party has for too long wielded a dogmatic veto over any discussion of limiting abortions. With your commitment to reasoned, evidence-based and respectful discourse, are you able to challenge your party to welcome pro-life Catholics into its supposed big tent?

Albany Catholic recommends you read the entire article here.

It's a good day for a peace conference

2008-08-16T09:11:00.003-04:00

Dennis Yusko at the Times Union writes about the annual Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference over in Fonda, which ends later today:

There's a stirring among area activists about the annual Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference, a desire to grow, get away from stereotypes and create "critical mass."

Organizers say it has grown in the last five years as the Iraq war, torture and government surveillance became national issues. The event will take place today and Saturday at a shrine on Route 5 in the Montgomery County community of Fonda that honors the 17th-century Mohawk Indian woman who has been proposed for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

But they say that they are looking to make the meeting's 10th edition, which starts Friday with dinner and a discussion, a new jumping off point for promoting a broader movement model: "responsible citizenship."

"There's a paradigm shift from national security to planetary sustainability," said Maureen Aumand of Colonie, who will make opening remarks for Saturday's workshops with John Amidon of Albany, a member of Veterans for Peace.

You can read more here. Albany Catholic hopes to see you there.

Director for the New York State Fair Trade Coalition

2008-08-06T19:05:00.001-04:00

Seeking Director for the New York State Fair Trade Coalition

The New York Fair Trade Coalition (NYFTC) seeks an Executive Director to further the policy and political goals of our organization. The qualified candidate will have the skills to grow and maintain the NYFTC, including a background in areas of policy issue advocacy, coalition building, fundraising, media relations and grassroots lobbying.

This leader will establish and maintain effective external relations with member groups, strategic allies, potential stakeholders and government officials. He or she will have overall responsibility for the implementation of activities within the organization. The Executive Director reports to the CTC Director and NYFTC executive committee.

This position was formerly set at half-time, with an annual salary of $18,000. With proper commitment, fundraising and growth, this position could move to $3000 per month, or a $36,000 annual full time job. Salary range starts at $1500 per month. Payment structure and location are both negotiable.

The deadline for applications is August 11th, 2008 or until position is filled. To apply, please mail, email or fax a resume and one page cover letter to Andy Gussert. No phone calls please.

Contact Information:

Andrew Gussert
Director, Citizens Trade Campaign
PO Box 77077
Washington, DC 20013

Fax: 202-293-5308
Email: agussert@citizenstrade.org

The NYFTC is a state affiliate of the Citizens Trade Campaign, and will serve as a leading state advocacy vehicle in the fight against unfair trade policies based on NAFTA and CAFTA.

About CTC:

CTC was founded in 1992 to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our labor, environmental, family farm, religious and civil society groups are united in a common belief that international trade is not an end in itself, but is instead a means for achieving larger societal goals such as economic justice, human rights, healthy communities and a sound environment. We oppose current trade agreements tilted in favor of multinational corporations, and support fair trade policies that help working people.

Responsibilities:

Responsibilities include grassroots lobbying and public education; developing and maintaining membership; coalition building; fundraising; event planning; media work, including editorial board meetings, writing op-eds and planning press conference; public speaking; financial oversight, and all administrative duties associated with running a non-profit organization.

This position requires a self-starter and creative problem-solver, motivated by the issues, able to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.

Duties Include:

Coordinate New York work with the Citizens Trade Campaign. Annually attend one Citizens Trade Campaign summit for state coalition leaders in Washington DC.
Nurture and maintain a NYFTC Executive Board.
Organize and implement campaigns on trade legislation at the federal and state levels.

Build the coalition, including outreach to labor unions and other organizations.
Maintain contact with New York Congressional Delegation on trade issues.
Generate newspaper stories, op-eds, radio coverage and media visibility.
Prepare monthly membership e-newsletter. Send action alerts as needed.
Build public actions including rallies, town hall forums, call-in days, etc.
Oversee fundraising for the Coalition from member organizations and other sources.
Convene monthly or quarterly NYFTC steering committee meetings.
Create annual strategic plan, in consultation with the steering committee and CTC.

Job Requirements:

Demonstrated leadership skills
High level of initiative, ability to work efficiently
Previous experience with community/union organizing; understanding of organized labor
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Experience with Microsoft Office applications
Must own car and be willing to travel
Willingness to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends

Health plan

2008-08-06T07:12:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, September 13, 2008, single payer advocates from across New York will meet in Albany to form a new statewide organization. Our aim: to build an unbeatable movement for a single payer public system that would fully fund comprehensive health care, including prescription drugs, for all. We invite all single-payer supporters to join us!

Private insurance has no legitimate role to play in the care of patients. We believe it must be replaced by a public program of health financing. Under a single-payer healthcare system, we'll spend our healthcare dollars on care, not on bureaucratic waste, profit-making and corporate gain.

Our grassroots movement has gained momentum in 2008. Healthcare-NOW and other groups organized a nationwide protest on June 19 in support of single-payer healthcare. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the New York State Assembly, and a growing number of unions and central labor bodies have all endorsed HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act.

New studies found that a majority of physicians support national health insurance. And there is renewed support for single-payer among important groups like the League of Women Voters, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Presbyterian Church USA.

Looking ahead, healthcare will continue to be a central issue in the presidential election. And New York State, with a new governor and a changing Senate, has initiated an official evaluation and discussion of proposals for universal healthcare. Now is the time to strengthen grassroots activism in support of a single national, publicly-financed healthcare plan.

Already a wide diversity of groups and individuals across New York are working for HR 676, and also for a New York state-based single payer system. We have worked together spontaneously, organically, and successfully. We also work with many other groups that promote
"universal healthcare" or "affordable healthcare," but not necessarily single payer. We are appreciative of their efforts. But the evidence is convincing that single payer reform is crucial for our state and our nation.

A formal statewide grassroots coalition will allow us to share resources, local news, publications, speakers and more. We have much to learn from one another - and from other successful state-based single payer organizations. Together we can build a vigorous single payer voice in every county in New York State—and, ultimately, a new healthcare system.

Please join us!

New York State Nurses Association ~ Mike Keenan, President, Troy Area
Labor Council, AFL-CIO ~ Kathleen Scales, Executive Director, Capital
District Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO ~ Healthcare-NOW ~ Health Care
Work Group of Otsego, Delaware & Chenango Counties ~ Mark Dunlea,
Executive Director, Hunger Action Network of New York State ~ Tompkins
County Health Care Task Force ~ Senior Legislative Action Committee of
Sullivan County ~ League of Women Voters of Saratoga County ~ Patricia
Friedland, member, Healthcare-NOW ~ Rev. Cass Shaw, Albany Presbytery
~ Long Island Coalition for a National Health Plan ~ Citizens for
Universal Healthcare, Kingston ~ Joel Schwartz, President, CSEA Local
446, Staten Island Council ~ Christy Staats, Clifton Park Single Payer
Committee ~ Barbara Warren, Executive Director, Citizens'
Environmental Coalition ~ Jeff Vogel, Delegate Assembly member, 1199
United Healthcare Workers East / SEIU ~ New York Metro, Syracuse,
Capital District, and Finger Lakes chapters of Physicians for a
National Health Program ~ Douglas Delong, MD, Physicians for a
National Health Program, Cooperstown ~ Richard Propp, MD, Capital
District Alliance for Universal Healthcare, Inc. ~ Doug Bullock, 8th
District Representative, Albany County Legislature ~ Rochester
Interfaith Health Care Coalition ~ New York Statewide Senior Action

SINGLE PAYER NEW YORK
Founding conference
Albany Medical College
Saturday September 13th
10am to Noon – Healthcare-NOW Roadshow, featuring Donna Smith of “Sicko"
Noon – lunch, please RSVP if you would like a box lunch
1pm to 4pm - organizing and strategy meeting

To join Single Payer New York, and for further details about September
13th, please contact one of the following:
Dr. Andy Coates pnhpcapitaldistrict @gmail.com ~ Rebecca Elgie healthylink@ earthlink. net
~ Mark Dunlea dunleamark@aol. com ~ Courtney Morrow pnhpmetro@nyc. rr.com

Deciding how to vote

2008-08-03T08:12:00.002-04:00

In a Commonweal article headlined “Yes You Can: Why Catholics Don’t Have to Vote Republican,” Gerald J. Beyer writes,

As an institution, the Roman Catholic Church does not tell believers for whom or against whom they must vote, despite what some politicians, pundits, and pastors suggest. Rather, as the U.S. bishops write in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship [PDF] (2007), “the responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience.” Certainly Catholics must seriously consider any candidate’s stance on “intrinsic evils” such as abortion, racism, and torture. Catholics may not vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil “if the voter’s intent is to support that position.” Yet Catholics may choose a candidate who does not unequivocally condemn an intrinsic evil for other “truly grave moral reasons.” Catholics ought to choose the candidate who is least likely to promote intrinsic evils and the most likely to promote “other authentic human goods.” So the question becomes: Are there “grave moral reasons” that permit Catholics to vote for Obama, or any other candidate, despite his or her prochoice stance, or would such a vote be “intellectually careless or downright disingenuous,” . . .?

. . . during this election season Catholic voters should not be duped into believing that the matter is already perfectly clear: Vote for McCain or be a bad Catholic! They ought to take their obligation to vote according to their consciences more seriously than that.

The rest of the article is here. As always, Albany Catholic notes that the final choice is up to you.

Peace Action Alert

2008-07-18T18:07:00.000-04:00

Upper Hudson Peace Action Alert

Now, before any irreversible steps are taken, is the time for us to speak out against any U.S. military attack on Iran.

On Monday, July 21st, join the nationwide call in day to make sure your member of Congress knows there is strong opposition to military action against Iran in his or her district. The call in day is sponsored by United for Peace and Justice. It only takes a few minutes to place a local phone call.

Pressure on Congress is critical right now as it considers House Congressional Resolution 362. Unfortunately both Michael McNulty and Kirsten Gillibrand have joined 102 House Democrats and 117 Republicans to cosponsor this resolution against Iran that demands President Bush "initiate an international effort" to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to prevent it from importing gasoline and to inspect all cargo entering or leaving Iran. Imposing such a blockade without UN authority could be widely construed as an act of war. Ask them to remove their names from co-sponsorship.

Phone numbers:

Congressman Michael McNulty, (518) 465-0700

Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, (518) 581-8247

Upper Hudson Peace Action, 33 Central Avenue, Albany, NY 12210 463-5907, info@peaceact.net

Dissent: Voices of Conscience

2008-07-18T07:01:00.002-04:00

Col. (ret.) Ann Wright, author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience
Tuesday, August 12, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Albany Public Library
161 Washington Avenue, Albany

Ann Wright will speak at the Albany Public Library while she is in the Capital Region for the Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference. Ann Wright's new book, Dissent: Voices of Conscience, profiles of those in government and active-duty military who have spoken out, leaked documents, resigned, or refused to deploy to protest the war in Iraq. The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression named Dissent their book of the month for February 2008.

Daniel Ellsberg wrote the foreword. "This … illuminating and remarkably impressive … book should be leaked into the government. … This book could awaken … officials to withdraw their complicity and … tell the truth to [the public]. This country will not escape further human, legal, and moral catastrophes, or preserve itself as a democratic, constitutional republic, if that does not happen. If you're at all like me, you will have a whole set of new heroes when you finish reading this. …Dissent: Voices of Conscience could change your life." — from the Foreword, by Daniel Ellsberg. Please see www.voicesofconscience.com for further information.

MEET THE CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES

2008-07-13T20:12:00.003-04:00

Sidney Albert Albany Jewish Community Center Auditorium
Thursday, July 17, 2008

6:00 pm Dessert and Coffee
7:00 p.m. Program w/ Q&A

Confirmed Attendees include:
Tracy Brooks, Democrat
Jim Buhrmaster, Republican
Darius Shahinfar, Democrat
Phil Steck, Democrat
Paul Tonko, Democrat
Steven Vasquez, Republican

PROGRAM MODERATOR: DR. MARK FRUITERMAN

ALL INTERESTED NNORC SENIORS AND FRIENDS OF NNORC INVITED!
Candidates will speak for 3 minutes each, answer some Q&A’s and mingle with those in attendance prior to formal program at 7:00 p.m. Come meet the people who want to fill Mike McNulty’s seat and make decisions for your future as the next Congress person from the 21st District from our district.

For more information or to sign-up call the NNORC at 514-2023.
Limited Seating.

Neighborhood Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NNORC) is an interfaith partnership led by Jewish Family Services of NENY, and also includes Senior Services of Albany, Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, United Jewish Federation of NENY, St. Peter's Home Care and CHOICES program, Catholic Charities, Sidney Albert Albany Jewish Community Center, and University at Albany School of Social Welfare. NNORC's allow adults to remain in their homes, and give them opportunities for social interaction and increased health and social services.

Welcome Picnic for Iraqi Refugees

2008-07-13T13:06:00.001-04:00

A reader asked that we share this mesage, and we at Albany Catholic are glad to oblige.

Welcome Picnic for Iraqi Refugees
Saturday, July 19, 1:30 - 5:30 (rain or shine!)
Islamic Center of the Capital District,
21 Lansing Rd. N., Schenectady, 12204
(off Central Ave., just past Ethan Allen on the right, going west)

Please join the Iraqi Refugee Support Committee for Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, Women’s Association for Family Affairs, and Women Against War in welcoming Iraqi refugees to the Capital District. Approximately one dozen Iraqi families have been re-settled in the Albany area in the past 6-8 months, and many new families will be arriving shortly. We hope you will join us in welcoming them to our community. The gathering will be hosted by the Islamic Center of the Capital District. Our generous hosts will provide picnic foods. You may bring a dish or dessert to share if you wish. We will break bread with our new Iraqi neighbors and provide them with dictionaries and other items to help ease their transition into life in Albany.

This event is free and open to all members of the peace community. You will have the opportunity to make a tax deductible donation to support the Iraqi families as they begin new lives, as well as the Iraqi student who will be studying at Union College as part of the Iraqi Student Project (www.iraqistudentproject.org)

If you cannot attend, checks for support of the refugee families can be made out to the Islamic Center of the Capital District, memo line: “ Iraqi Refugee Project”, and mailed to ICCDNY, 21 Lansing Rd. N., Schenectady, 12204. To contribute to the Iraqi student at Union College, please make your check out to Union College, memo line: “Restricted to account #45841”, and mail to Records, Attn: Kathleen D. McCann, Union College Schenectady, NY 12308. Donations to the Union fund can also be made online: http://www.union.edu/Alumni and follow the instructions. Please include the memo: “Restricted to account #45841”

For more information contact: Carole Ferraro, 518.463.0095, cferraro@hotmail.com or Elaine Hills, 518.439.8262.

Carter and Reagan

2008-07-08T20:18:00.002-04:00

Today's Daily News has an interesting column by Richard Cohen:

Those of you with keen memories may recall that the energy crisis is not new. In 1977, Jimmy Carter called it the "moral equivalent of war." In the sort of speech a politician rarely delivers, he told a not particularly grateful nation that his energy program was going to hurt, but "a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy." The core of his initiative was conservation. Carter had earlier asked us to lower the thermostat and wear a sweater. He wore one himself.

Ronald Reagan, who followed Carter to the White House, wore only a smile. For him, there was no energy crisis. Whereas Carter had insisted only the government could manage the energy crisis, Reagan in his first inaugural demanded that government get out of the way. Speaking of general economic conditions at the time, he said, "Government is not the solution to our problem." He went on to call for America to return to greatness, to "reawaken this industrial giant," and all sorts of swell things would happen. It was wonderful stuff.

To contrast the two speeches is like comparing the screeching of a cat to the miracles of Mozart. Yet today, Carter's speech reads as prescient. Most of his dire predictions - "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century" - have generally come true, although not quite as soon or calamitously as he warned. The pity of it all is that in American politics, being right is beside the point.

Albany Catholic recommends you read the entire article here.

The Christian Nation Movement

2008-07-05T07:10:00.001-04:00

A friend recently sent us a blog item about the “The Christian Nation Movement.”

Pat Robertson has often commented that the phrase "separation of church and state" appears in the Soviet not the United States Constitution and that "our judicial establishment [has successfully imposed] the Soviet strictures on the United States." While Robertson's views were once on the fringe of the Republican Party, today they are echoed by Republican leaders such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Senate Conference Chairman Rick Santorum.

The Republicans are actively seeking to implement their vision of a Christian nation through programs such as the Faith-Based Initiative which seeks to expand the role of faith-based organizations ("FBOs") in providing federally funded social services. In implementing this program, the Bush administration removed several constitutionally required safeguards (e.g., allowing federal funds to build religious structures) and limited oversight to "self-audits". Not surprisingly, courts have found a number of grants to FBOs, such as a grant to instruct nursing students on the use of prayer as a therapeutic practice, to be unconstitutional.

Christian nation advocates should leave their red state cocoon and stand on the banks of theProvidence River. For this is where Roger Williams, who had been banished from Massachusetts by the Puritans for his religious views, founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636 based on his vision that there should be a "wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world,'" and that religious freedom must extend to all and not just Christians. As a result of Williams' vision, Rhode Island became known as "the safest refuge of conscience" and home to the New World's first Baptist Church and synagogue.

The seed sown by Williams ultimately blossomed into the First Amendment, which in the words of Thomas Jefferson prohibits Congress from enacting any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." While it is true that the actual phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the First Amendment, the concept was invoked by the First Amendment's author, James Madison, who explained that "[t]he purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries." The Founders also addressed the Christian nation question in the Treaty of Tripoli, signed under President Washington and ratified under President Adams, which states that "the Government of the United States of Americais not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

You can read the entire article here.

Proof That God Loves America

2008-07-04T18:11:00.002-04:00

The website endlesssimmer.com has an item titled The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented:

When it comes to food, America gets a bad rap. It’s a common refrain that America has no cuisine to call our own. We’ve got apple pie and hot dogs, but that’s about it. (And when you really get down to it, the Germans invented hot dogs, and the British were eating apple pie like 1,000 years ago.)

But the truth is, America does have a cuisine to call it’s own. Over the past 232 years we’ve invented some of the most creative, daring, and yes, downright craziest dishes the world has ever seen. Sure, they can be overly greasy, a little too cheesy, and sometimes fried a few times too many. But they’re ours. So to celebrate Independence Day, we’ve put together this list of the best foods that only a country with just the right combination of greed, grit, and gluttony could have possibly dreamed up.

We at Albany Catholic believe this is further proof that God loves America, but we admit that we might be thinking with our stomachs rather than with our brains. The entire article is available here.

Israel and Palestine

2008-06-29T17:01:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, July 9 at 7:00 p.m.
Israel and Palestine Up-close and Personal.

A presentation and discussion with Paul Rehm, a Christian Peacemaker Teams member recently returned from the West Bank. The Pastoral Center, 40 North Main Avenue in Albany. "They come in the middle of the night, some with blackened faces, all with automatic weapons....Who are they, these men and women who steal food and clothing meant for students, orphans and needy families in Hebron, who raid and destroy bakeries that make the bread for the orphans’ breakfast? They're Israeli soldiers who came in a rumbling convoy of jeeps and trucks during early morning hours of the last day of April.” ~ Paul Rehm

Sponsored by Pax Christi of Schenectady, New York

Iraqi refugees in the Capital District

2008-06-16T21:08:00.001-04:00

We received the following message from Women Against War:

Dear friends, On July 20th, Sunday afternoon, Women Against War's Iraqi Refugee Project will hold a welcome/fundraising event for the Iraqi refugees recently relocated to our area. It will be held at the Islamic Center for the Capital District in Colonie. Details will follow.

There are now eight families in our area, and we're expecting an Iraqi student to begin his studies at Union College in the fall as part of the national Iraqi Student Project. They all have very concrete needs, as well as the need to be welcomed and befriended as they find their way in a new country, especially after the trauma they've lived through . This event will be an opportunity to meet our new neighbors and to begin raising funds for them.

Albany Catholic will provide more details as they become available.

The Castle

2008-06-10T19:41:00.001-04:00

The cast of Off-Broadway's The Castle will give a special performance for New York State legislators in Albany on Monday, June 16, 2008. All are welcome to attend this free event.

New York State Senator Tom Duane has invited the company to perform the autobiographical work, which sheds light on the stories of incarcerated individuals and their journeys beyond. The Castle will be presented at 6:00 PM in the Empire State Plaza Building (Concourse Plaza level), Meeting Room #6. Admission is free, but seating is limited. RSVP with Mark Furnish in Senator Duane's office at (518) 455-2452.

David Rothenberg conceived and directed The Castle, which features previous incarcerates Vilma Ortiz Donovan, Kenneth Harrington, Angel Ramos and Casimiro Torres, who tell their own true-life stories. The production officially opened at New World Stages April 27.

The Off-Broadway production and its title are inspired by the resident home run by The Fortune Society in upper Manhattan. The dramatic work features personal accounts of formerly incarcerated individuals and their re-entry into society.

Since its launch 40 years ago, The Fortune Society has been developing model programs that help the formerly incarcerated to successfully re-enter their communities. The Castle serves as The Fortune Society's resident program for 60 men and women.

Inspired by the 1967 Off-Broadway prison drama, Fortune in Men's Eyes, The Fortune Society was founded by former theatre publicist David Rothenberg. Among the services offered are supportive housing, career development, job retention, substance abuse treatment, alternatives to incarceration, HIV/AIDS services, education, family services and drop-in services as well as ongoing access to aftercare.

For more information visit the fortune society.

Family & Friends of Homicide Victims

2008-05-31T18:55:00.002-04:00

Family & Friends of Homicide Victims is, as the name suggests, a Capital District group that supports "the ones left behind."

What they do:

* We work together with community based victim service providers.
* We share our stories and experiences.
* We find commonality and programs which help us build communities.
* We work with a lot of different agencies to understand, improve and develop programs that will be beneficial and help us, “The Ones Left Behind”.
* We strive to help each other regain that sense of being safe.
* We are also involved with restorative justice practices and advocacy programs.
* We may not have been able to prevent the death of our loved one, but we can certainly bring meaning to their life.

You can learn more here.

Albany's Wasteful 'Investments'

2008-05-17T19:43:00.002-04:00

George Marlin is the author/editor of ten books including Squandered Opportunities: New York’s Pataki Years (2006), The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact (2004) and Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party (2002).

In 1993, Mr. Marlin was the Conservative Party nominee for mayor of the City of New York, and in 1994 he served on Governor-elect Pataki’s transition team. He served two terms as Executive Director and CEO of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In that capacity he managed thirty-five facilities including the World Trade Center, LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark Airports, PATH Subway and the four bridges and two tunnels that connect New York and New Jersey.

With this background, he is well-positioned to cast a wary eye on corporate welfare, something we at Albany Catholic have done, and for which we have been criticized as anti-American socialists by some of our more irate readers. Perhaps Mr. Marlin, because of his experience, can present the argument without facing such criticism.

He did so most recently in the pages of the New York Post, with an article entitled Albany's Wasteful 'Investments':

With New York's five- year cumulative deficit now projected to hit an astounding $27 billion, Gov. Paterson has no choice but to cut state spending.

Ripe for the chopping block: company-specific economic-development projects run by the executive branch that contribute little to the state economy compared to their cost. Here are two candidates, one each from the Pataki and Spitzer teams:

In 2006, Gov. Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno awarded the mother of all economic-development subsidies to an also-ran computer-chip maker, Advanced Micro Devices. The state agreed to deliver the breathtaking sum of about $1.2 billion to AMD - $750 million in cold, hard state-taxpayer cash and over $450 million in Empire Zone tax waivers, should the company decide (AMD still isn't obligated to proceed) to build a chip-manufacturing facility in Saratoga County, coincidentally the heart of Bruno's district.

In return for that shocking subsidy, AMD agreed to create about 1,200 jobs. Do the math: That's a cost to the state of more than $1 million a job.

Now it turns out that, despite its apparent skills in wheedling record sums out of state elected officials, AMD isn't capable of making money making chips. Pair that with a botched acquisition and miscues in rolling out its new super chip, and its stock has headed steadily downward. At about $7 a share, it's off about 83 percent since the New York deal was announced. AMD is now in the process of firing 5,000 employees.

The taxpayers' potential loss is even more shocking, however. While Saratoga County may benefit, on a statewide basis, the size of the AMD subsidy makes it impossible for the state to come close to breaking even.

Advocates for the project, many of whom stand to benefit financially from it, argue that the AMD factory would create spin-off jobs benefiting the state. That's true to a limited extent, but the project simply couldn't create enough spin-off jobs ever to make the state whole on its more than $1 billion outlay.

Another sham "investment," this one by the Spitzer administration, was the relatively modest $1.5 million for Corning Inc.'s new R&D facility in the southern tier. The state aid provided was so modest that it undoubtedly did little more than ensure government officials a speaking role at the press conference announcing the new R&D center.

You can read the rest of this article here.

Evangelicals for Obama?

2008-05-11T21:14:00.002-04:00

The Seattle Times reports on a growing trend among evangelicals.

Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man.

He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

"I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.

Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

The rest of the story is here.

Bishops Oppose Reduction in Catholic School Reimbursement

2008-05-04T07:41:00.002-04:00

The New York State Catholic Conference represents the Bishops of New York State in matters of Public Policy. The role of the Conference is to seek justice, fairness and charity for all, with a particular emphasis on the poor and vulnerable.

The Conference recently issued an “Acton Alert” regarding funding for Catholic schools:

On April 9, Governor Paterson and State Legislative leaders proudly announced another record increase in funding to public schools -- $1.8 billion more than they received last year. That's a 9 percent increase -- twice the rate of inflation. Here's what they said:

"Even in difficult times, we still must strive to provide critical funding for our education system." - Governor Paterson.

"...this budget delivers results for every student, parent, teacher, school, administrator and taxpayer in New York State." - Senate Budget Statement

"This historic increase in education funding....maintains the Assembly Majority's long-standing commitment to provide a quality education for all of New York's children." - Assembly Budget Statement

But what did they do for religious and independent schools? Just the opposite.They CUT funding used to reimburse mandated costs of religious and independent school costs by 2 percent. By doing so they have broken the state's long-standing legal commitment to reimburse independent and religious schools for 100 percent of their mandated expenses. This is completely unacceptable.

We need you to contact the Governor and your legislators now to let them know you cannot accept this injustice.

Take action now by going here and sending a pre-written, editable e-mail message to Gov. Paterson and your state Senator and Assembly Member. The automated system will find your legislators by your home address.

If you can't open the link, go to www.nyscatholic.org and click the Take Action Now button on the homepage.

Is Obama the True Conservative?

2008-05-03T21:28:00.002-04:00

We at Albany Catholic do not endorse candidates. We do however, like to keep our readers well-informed. With that in mind, we pass along the following item. The March 24, 2008 issue of The American Conservative had an interesting article entitled The conservative case for Barack Obama by Andrew J. Bacevich, who writes:

Barack Obama is no conservative. Yet if he wins the Democratic nomination, come November principled conservatives may well find themselves voting for the senator from Illinois. Given the alternatives—and the state of the conservative movement—they could do worse.

Granted, when it comes to defining exactly what authentic conservatism entails, considerable disagreement exists even (or especially) among conservatives themselves. My own definition emphasizes the following:

- a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint;

- a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;

- veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of stewardship for Creation;

- a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;

- respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a wariness of the market’s corrosive impact on humane values;

- a deep suspicion of utopian promises, rooted in an appreciation of the sinfulness of man and the recalcitrance of history.

Accept that definition and it quickly becomes apparent that the Republican Party does not represent conservative principles. The conservative ascendancy that began with the election of Ronald Reagan has been largely an illusion. During the period since 1980, certain faux conservatives—especially those in the service of Big Business and Big Empire—have prospered. But conservatism as such has not.

The rest of the article is available here.

Legislative Pork

2008-05-03T11:18:00.001-04:00

The State Senate has posted its 2008-09 "member initiative forms" here.

The State Assembly has posted its 2008-09 "legislative initiatives" here.

These sites allow us to see how our legislators dole out our money. You may find some recipients worthwhile, and others, well, not so much.

Pastors, Parishes and Political Responsibility

2008-04-23T07:23:00.001-04:00

The New York State Catholic Conference has updated its on-line material regarding political activity here. An excerpt follows:

The role and responsibilities of Catholics in public life have been the subject of much discussion throughout our nation in recent months. Catholics, virtually alone among religious denominations, are often made to feel that we should not allow our deeply held beliefs to help shape our positions on political issues. The notion that Catholics should separate their religious and moral beliefs from their actions as policy makers or voters is incorrect on its face. All people are obligated to vote according to their informed conscience, and religious beliefs play a critical role in the formation of the conscience.

In the United States of America, all citizens are blessed to have the opportunity to vote for our political leaders. This is not a responsibility to be taken lightly, and the New York State Catholic Conference renews its call to Catholic citizens to inform themselves on the critical issues of the day and to exercise their right to vote. These issues include, but are not limited to, respect for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception until natural death, issues of war and peace, the education and formation of children, the needs of the poor, oppressed and vulnerable, and access to health care for all people, particularly the elderly and infirm.

In the document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the bishops of the United States remind us of the role of the church in the public square. “The United States Constitution protects the right of individual believers and religious bodies to participate and speak out without government interference, favoritism, or discrimination. ...Our nation’s tradition of pluralism is enhanced, not threatened, when religious groups and people of faith bring their convictions into public life. The Catholic community brings to the political dialogue a consistent moral framework and broad experience serving those in need.”

But the document goes further than asserting the rights of Catholics to participate in the political process. It notes that such participation is obligatory. “In the Catholic tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation. ...Catholic lay women and men need to act on the Church’s moral principles and become more involved: running for office, working within political parties, and communicating concerns to elected officials.”

Turning again to Faithful Citizenship, we are reminded of the importance of a well-formed conscience: “The Church equips her members to address political questions by helping them develop well-formed consciences.” It is the exercise of conscience, aided by prudential judgment, that assists Catholics in determining effective ways to promote the common good. The Bishops state, “Catholic voters should use Catholic teaching to examine candidates’ positions on issues and should consider candidates’ integrity, philosophy, and performance. It is important for all citizens ‘to see beyond party politics, to analyze campaign rhetoric critically, and to choose their political leaders according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest.’ (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 33).”

Catholic prayer

2008-04-20T18:31:00.002-04:00

It is good to remember, as we at Albany Catholic do on this last day of the Pope's visit to the U.S., that prayer is an integral part of our lives. There is a good collection of Catholic prayers, and prayer styles, at Beliefnet:

For readers interested in Catholic prayer, Beliefnet offers:

Features on revered Catholic prayers like the Our Father and Hail Mary

Audio and guidance for Catholics interested in contemplative prayer and practices like the spiritual exercises of Saint Ignatius

A Catholic prayer library searchable by need or occasion, including prayers of Roman Catholic saints like St. Francis of Assisi, St. John of the Cross, and more

Personal prayers of Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and other revered Catholic figures

Advice on prayer from retreat leaders and spiritual directors like Richard Rohr and Henri Nouwen

"How to" guides on Catholic prayer and praying styles such as Lectio Divina

Text of the Divine Office for Holy Week and Easter

Catholic prayers and readings for Advent and Lent

Another Jeremiah

2008-04-06T18:55:00.003-04:00

John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., a professor of philosophy at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, writes in the latest issue of America magazine about the controversial comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Senator Barack Obama:

By now, Senator Barack Obama’s talk, “A More Perfect Union,” delivered at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center on March 18, has been analyzed to death. For my part, I thought it a politically astute and important speech that merits reading by everyone, even though it will not save Obama’s candidacy. We have become such a soundbite, libelous culture, using snippets of information to attack our political enemies, stoking latent fears and assaulting by innuendo, that the likelihood of the senator’s nomination and election seems slimmer every day.

I have been preoccupied with the preacher whose words necessitated Obama’s speech. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator’s pastor for 20 years, has been known as a religious leader in Chicago and nationwide for the last two decades, but a recent spate of video snippets has now made him infamous. I have not been able to track down the full text of the sermons that dealt with AIDS or “The United States of White America.” (If he says that AIDS was targeted against blacks by the U.S. government, he has quite foolishly and incorrectly formed his judgment from street talk and unsupported conspiracy theories. If he calls our country “White America,” I would like to know the context and his point.)

I do know the context of the “chickens come home to roost” video that the networks, especially Fox News, have played hundreds of times. It is a sermon that I have read in its entirety. You should too.
. . .
As Wright continued, he pointed out that violence and hatred beget violence and hatred.

And then the preacher turned to something that possibly no one is aware of from the YouTube clips. Having been in New Jersey on that September day of “unthinkable acts,” Jeremiah Wright was drawn to examine his own relationship to God, his lack of prayer, his honesty. “Is it real or is it fake? Is it forever or is it for show?”

The full story has been willfully ignored by commentators . . .

The entire article is worth reading. It can be found here.

4,000

2008-03-24T19:16:00.002-04:00

Terence L. Kindlon, an Albany lawyer and a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, writes in today’s Times Union, after American casualties in Itaq hit the 4,000 mark:

"If I were slightly younger ... I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines. ... It must be exciting ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."
-- President Bush, March 13

On the day after Christmas in 1967, I found a young Marine quietly lying on his back near the perimeter wire at our temporary base south of DaNang. He was just a boy, maybe 18, and he looked relaxed, as if he had drifted off to sleep under a warm sun while fishing. But he wasn't asleep. He was dead and gone, taken down by a sniper's bullet shot through the center of his chest. When I checked for a pulse he was still warm.

The same day I found that dead Marine, another young man, George W. Bush, then a senior at Yale, was probably home for Christmas vacation. Mr. Bush, 21 and just a few months from graduation, was at an ideal age to enlist in the military, where he could have had -- to use his words -- the fantastic, exciting experience, in some ways romantic, of confronting danger as a second lieutenant on the front lines of Vietnam. If he wanted, he could have actually had the exact same kind of combat experience he rhapsodized about just a few days ago.

Unfortunately, after graduation in 1968, he decided to cut and run instead.

The rest of his op-ed piece is here. We at Albany Catholic recommend it.

Election aids

2008-03-09T10:38:00.002-04:00

The Center of Concern has developed a number of materials to help us participate actively in the current political campaigns as informed and faithful Christians. The materials posted here can help us deepen our own analysis, make our own evaluation of the programs and candidates, and engage our local communities.

Future postings in this Center initiative will be made on the 1st and 15th of each month. Topics will include immigration, international relations, jobs and outsourcing, poverty, Iraq and security, health care, and climate change. Other topics may be developed as the campaigns evolve.

The issues are framed in the context of globalization and a commitment to the common good faithful to the universalism of the Christian vision. They reflect the conviction that merely national solutions to security, health, poverty, employment, migration, the ecology and life itself cannot provide more than short-term fixes.

Select, download and use the materials that are most helpful to you in your context. One example of the entries if the following draft blog/op-ed:

Sound bites and easy canned answers do not do justice to the needs facing the American public nor to its intelligence. Turn them off! Block them out! Demand honest, direct real-life answers to life’s real questions – like jobs, outsourcing, health care, poverty, immigration and security. And don’t try to use our religion to divide us or manipulate us.

As a Christian approaching what could be the most important set of national elections in my lifetime, I have a serious responsibility to be an authentic Citizen Disciple: involved in the political process, working to turn the country toward greater justice for all, guided in addressing the issues and candidates first of all by the values of Jesus and his vision of the human community in the Reign of God. All Christians do. And I’m sure members of other faiths – and even people with no religious faith but authentic human values – can say something analogous.

During the three months ahead after which we will probably have identified our major presidential candidates, my dream is that we Americans will use all the best resources at our command to choose candidates and support programs that will move us as a nation again toward our best social vision for humanity, building on our best and most sacred national traditions and values.

Among those resources in the Catholic community are:

- a centuries-long living tradition of social vision, principles and values grounded in the teachings of Christ,

- deep engagement with each and all of the issues facing the American people,

- strong national and international networks of organizations committed to working for justice for each and every person, and

- a well-articulated faith vision that supports and invites social engagement with these issues.

To help Christians and Catholics take leadership in the national process of selecting new leadership and setting our national direction into the future, the Center of Concern is offering analyses of the major issues and educational tools to help people deepen their own analysis, make their own evaluation of the programs and candidates, and engage their local communities in those same efforts.

The first set of materials in this new project clarifies the notion of the common good as the context for all the major issues of the campaigns. The policy paper and educational materials argue that each of the issues – from immigration to jobs, from health care to global warming, from poverty to terrorism – is a new and more complicated problem than it was a few years ago precisely because of globalization. Merely national solutions to security, health, poverty, employment, migration, the ecology and the so-called “life issues” themselves cannot provide more than short-term fixes.

All materials in the Center of Concern initiative will be posted at www.coc.org/election2008 and www.educationforjustice.org, and are available free of charge for individual or group use. Future postings in this Center initiative will be made on the 1st and 15th of each month. Topics will include immigration, international relations, jobs and outsourcing, poverty, Iraq and security, health care, and climate change. Other topics may be developed as the primary campaigns evolve into the national campaign. Take a look.

Candidates and faith

2008-03-02T20:10:00.003-05:00

Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School, writes about presidential candidates and their faith in yesterday’s Voices of Faith column in the Times Union.

Eight years ago, when George W. Bush stated on the eve of the Iowa caucuses that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, suppose someone had asked a follow-up question: "Mr. Bush, Jesus, your favorite philosopher, invited his followers to love their enemies and to turn the other cheek. How will that guide your foreign policy, especially in the event, say, of an attack on the United States?"

Or: "Governor Bush, your favorite philosopher expressed concern for the tiniest sparrow. How will that sentiment be reflected in your administration's environmental policies?"

Or: "Jesus called his followers to care for 'the least of these.' How does that teaching inform your views on tax policy or welfare reform?"

He goes on to note:

Ronald Reagan insisted abortion was the defining moral issue of his time, and he campaigned twice for the presidency promising to outlaw it. Yet as even his supporters acknowledge he made no serious effort to outlaw abortion. He made no mention of it in his 700-page autobiography.

On the other hand, no one could accuse Lyndon Johnson of being a demonstrably pious or religious man. Yet he learned (and sought to live by) a simple maxim that he attributed to his mother: The strong have an obligation to look after the weak. That principle led him, a white Southerner, to push for civil rights, and it also animated his quest for the Great Society. Tragically, Johnson used the same principle to justify American involvement in Vietnam.

Billy Graham detected vast reservoirs of faith in his friend Richard Nixon, who hosted worship services in the White House. Probity, however, is not the first word that comes to mind in recalling the Nixon administration. And Bill Clinton's many critics would be justified in pointing out the disjunction between his professions of faith and his conduct in the Oval Office.

Arguably, the only exception to this litany proves the rule. Jimmy Carter ran for office promising a government as "good and decent as the American people" to whom he pledged, "I will never lie to you." After he sought actually to govern according to his moral principles -- revising the Panama Canal Treaty, seeking peace in the Middle East -- the American people denied him a second term.

Then he goes on:

We the voters settle for shallow, perfunctory bromides about faith and piety. We allow candidates to lull us into believing they are moral and virtuous simply because they say they are.

At the very least, we should examine those claims to see if any real substance lies beneath the campaign rhetoric. If we're not willing to probe the depth and the sincerity of politicians' declarations of faith, then we shouldn't bother to ask the question.

Albany Catholic recommends the entire article, which can be found
here.

Presentation on Iran

2008-02-27T19:52:00.001-05:00

Citizen diplomats -- Priscilla Fairbank, Jonathan Hill and Barbara Spring -- will share visuals and experiences from their December 2007 tour in Iran on Wednesday March 5 at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, 3361 6th Ave., Troy.

The group traveled with Fellowship of Reconciliation to meet with ordinary people of all ages: casual bazaar shoppers, high school and college students, children and parents on the street or in public parks, clerics in mosques. They were in Iran when the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was released in the U.S. which confirmed that Iran had abandoned it’s nuclear weapons program.

Potluck dinner, including Iranian goodies, at 6pm, presentation at 7:00pm.
For more information call 518-463-0095.

Today's special election

2008-02-26T20:18:00.002-05:00

The special election in the 48th Senate District (the Oswego area, as well as Jefferson-St. Lawrence counties) may help determine who controls the state Senate. The Times Union writes on its blog:

Here's a photo, at approximately 3 pm, of part of the vast underground parking lots at the state Capitol complex. The Legislature is in session, and rarely are so many open spaces available in one place. The reason? I’m told its due to the scores of Senate staffers who are up in the 48th SD campaigning for their respective candidates.

It is not unusual in the Capitol for staffers to "volunteer" to work on special elections around the state. At least one wag in the Capitol calls this the politicians' version of public funding of political campaigns.

Social Action Conference

2008-02-18T19:41:00.002-05:00

Social Action Conference
Friday - Saturday, February 29-March 1
10am-4:30pm
Campus Center
University at Albany

The Social Action Conference is a two-day Conference that will feature panels and workshops on contemporary issues including the War in Iraq, Violence Against Women, Voting Rights, Media Reform, Environmental Advocacy, and more! The purpose of the Conference is to open a dialogue between students, faculty, community members, and community organizations about global issues.

Organizers want to encourage local activism and local solutions to global conflicts. For more information contact: revolutionaryfever@gmail.com

Poverty in the Diocese of Albany

2008-02-12T19:42:00.000-05:00

The Albany diocese has updated its report on poverty in the diocese, which is available here. We at Albany Catholic urge you to read it. In his letter at the start of the docment, Bishop Howard Hubbard writes:

I am pleased to invite you to read, study and respond to the challenges and opportunities presented in “Poverty in the Diocese of Albany: A Threat to the Common Good.” I expect that, like myself, you will be troubled by the portrait of our neighbors in need and inspired to double our efforts to reduce poverty in our midst. This paper, prepared by our Diocesan Catholic Charities staff, is our local response to a report issued by Catholic Charities USA that calls on all Americans “to steadily decrease poverty in our nation so that by the year 2020 the rate of poverty will be reduced at least by half.” The national report , “Poverty in America: A Threat to the Common Good,” portrays poverty as a moral issue, details the reality of poverty across the country and suggests public policies to reduce poverty.

In my role as chairman of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I have seen the ravages of poverty throughout the country, most notably in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In my upcoming role as chair of the Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, I will be part of efforts to address poverty in all corners of the globe.

People to People in Iran

2008-02-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

Citizen diplomats, Priscilla Fairbank, Jonathan Hill and Barbara Spring will share visuals and experiences from their December 2007 tour in Iran:

Thursday, February 7 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 pm at the Bethlehem Public Library, 451 Delaware Ave, Delmar, and on March 5 at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, 3361 6th Avenue in Troy, with potluck dinner, including Iranian goodies, at 6:00 p.m., and the presentation at 7:00pm.

The group traveled with Fellowship for Reconciliation to meet with ordinary people of all ages: casual bazaar shoppers, high school and college students, children and parents on the street or in public parks, clerics in mosques. They were in Iran with the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was released in the U.S. which confirmed that Iran had abandoned it’s nuclear weapons program.

Global warming in upstate New York?

2008-02-03T09:40:00.000-05:00

From the Times Union earlier this week:

A NASA scientist from a Nobel Prize-winning climate panel agreed Wednesday with Cheryl Rogowski, an Orange County vegetable farmer: Global warming is changing farming in the state and more change is inevitable.

While scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig helped put together a global climate database for the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rogowski needed to look no further than her hot pepper crop.

What two decades ago was a two-week harvest season at Rogowski's farm for jalapenos has now grown to nearly six weeks, as spring has begun arriving earlier and summers have become warmer, she said. "We are able to start our planting two weeks earlier than we used to."

The two spoke as part of a panel sponsored by the Honest Weight Food Co-Op, an Albany store that focuses on natural and organic foods. The panel took place at the state Legislative Office Building.

Click here for the full article.

Death Penalty Action

2008-01-31T20:29:00.000-05:00

Can you spare 10 seconds to help get the message to a chronic death penalty supporter?

State Senator Frank Padavan, who supports the death penalty, has a poll on his website here.

Please scroll down the center section to the quick poll and cast your vote. If you live in the district or near it, please also e-mail him through the website to let him know that you oppose the death penalty and you are a constituent. You can also post a comment at the end of the cop killer piece on the right side of his page.

Thursday's meeting to oppose the war

2008-01-30T20:28:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder if you are doing enough to end the war in Iraq? Do you wish you could connect with local people who also oppose this war? Then read on:

Planning Meeting for January 31

5th Anniversary Against the War Events
Albany Public Library, 6:30- 8:30 pm
2nd Floor Conference Room #1

Draft Meeting Agenda :
1) Review of Meeting Notes from Jan 17
2) Report on Conference Call with Upstate Anti-war Coalition
3) Report from Theme Committee and discussion
4) Report from Route Committee and discussion
5) Steve Wickham on how the website is coming along
6) Volunteers to organize: publicity, refreshments, comfort stops, maps, etc.
7) Report on Civil Disobedience being planned for 5th Anniversary
8) Report from Conference Committee and discussion
9) Set Next meeting and action items

Debate Watching 101

2008-01-17T19:24:00.000-05:00

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She offers seven tips for debate watching that Albany Catholic recommends to you. For example:

1) I recommend not watching the coverage immediately before the debate and, when the debate is finished, turn the television off and talk with your family about what you saw and what was important to you. And think about what you saw.

2) Candidates make different assumptions about government's role, about economic policy, about the value of government regulation, about the role of the US in the world, about appropriate use of military power, about US relationships with other countries... and the like. What are the governing philosophies of the candidates?

3) Come to a debate with a list of the issues that matter to you and ask what you learned about each candidate's record and promises on those issues. Where are they similar and how do they differ?

The full list is available here.

Top 10

2008-01-12T18:16:00.000-05:00

In the latest issue of National Catholic Reporter, John L. Allen Jr. writes "capsule summaries of the year’s Top 10 stories, briefly suggesting dimensions that perhaps didn’t get the attention they deserve." For example:

The pope is coming: Benedict’s April 15-20, 2008, trip to the United States was announced in November. Two bits of drama to watch: First, how will he address the sexual abuse crisis, and will he meet with victims? (No pope has yet done so.) Second, how will organizers prevent political exploitation of the trip in view of looming elections? That could be tricky if, as in 2004, one presidential candidate is pro-life and the other pro-choice.

The entire article is available here.

Bishop Hubbard on Religion and Politics

2008-01-07T19:59:00.000-05:00

Bishop Howard J. Hubbard has written an excellent article for the Times Union regarding the role of religion in the public square. As we at Albany Catholic have come to expect, it is thoughtful and reasoned and worth sharing. Here is an excerpt:

What is different in the contemporary milieu and is contributing, I believe, to the concern about the legitimacy of the religious voice in the public debate is the growing secularization of our culture. America remains a society wherein religion is important for people's lives, but, and unlike other periods in our nation's history, increasingly religion is being relegated to our private lives as an aggressively secular culture systematically seeks to exclude religion from all public space.

Religion is deemed acceptable for private life, but, when its adherents seek to advance arguments in the public arena, they are told "to check their bags at the door." Under the banner of enforcing the notion of official neutrality, the contemporary secular milieu actually promotes its own secular values to a privileged position in shaping public opinion and public policy.
. . .
In other words, there has developed the phenomenon in our national life that would seek to rule religiously based values out of order in the public arena simply because their roots are religious. In this view, pluralism is defined as a public square purged of "intolerance," which many secularists define as the belief in exclusive truth claims that define right and wrong. They believe that any religious voice in a pluralistic society will either infect the body politic with unhealthy doses of fanaticism and ill will or will contribute to the type of extremism and polarization along religious lines that have plagued Europe and the Mideast for centuries.

Therefore, we have the anomaly in our country that in private, religion enjoys an overwhelming majority status (more than 90 percent of our citizens profess belief in God, and 80 percent claim adherence to some religious tradition), but in public, religion has a minority status or no status at all. It is either eliminated entirely from public space, or if it does exist in our public affairs, our entertainment, our intellectual and artistic endeavors, it exists uneasily, disguised on its very best and blandest behavior, preferably, as a form of vague nondenominationalism.

We in the faith community are struggling with the challenge of how best to engage the culture in a way that combats an elite secularism that is fundamentally antithetical to a spiritual message. Religious people across the theological and political spectrum, from the far left to the far right, are increasingly uneasy with the cultural drift that has developed. For religious conservatives, these forces are exemplified in the abortion syndrome, value-free secular schools and moral laxity. For religious liberals, these forces are perceived in militarism, consumerism and environmental insensitivity.

People's State of the State

2008-01-04T20:49:00.000-05:00

The Hunger Action Network of New York State will hold the annual People’s State of the State Rally at the State Capitol in Albany on Tuesday, January 8 at noon.

The group is pushing for Governor Spitzer to propose the first increase in the welfare basic grant since 1990. The welfare benefit package has fallen to less than 50% of the federal poverty level, with the basic grant coming to only $291 a month for a family of 3.

It is also calling upon state lawmakers to enact a single payer universal health care system, saying it would do the best job of cutting health costs while providing quality health care to all New Yorkers.

Speakers will include Marcia Pappas, President of the NYS National Organization for Women; Ron Deutsch, Director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness; Matt Funiciello, CEO, Rockhill Bakehouse; and Linda O'Brien, President of the NYS Nurses Association.

You can learn more here.

Second Week of Christmas

2008-01-01T18:14:00.000-05:00

From our friends at Pax Christi:

Pax Christi USA is encouraging its members, friends and all people of conscience and good will to undertake one specific action for peace during each week of Advent/Christmas. For each week, Pax Christi USA will suggest one coordinated action in which individuals and groups from around the nation may participate together. This week's action encourages you and your group to make resolutions for the new year which uphold the values of your commitment to justice and peace in our world.

You can make such resolutions personally or in public, asking friends and families members to hold you accountable to them. You may also want to articulate resolutions for your Pax Christi local or campus group, family, parish, school, religious community, etc. Consider writing out these resolutions and including them in some deliberate way when you meet together (posting them on the wall in your meeting space, using them in your communal prayer, etc.)

Undertaking New Year's resolutions in this manner can also help to highlight your commitment to justice and peace within your families and among your friends, encouraging them to also incorporate socially- conscious themes in their resolutions.

There are literally thousands of good ideas out there for you to consider: a commitment to alternative transportation; tax resistance; ongoing vigils or actions for peace; support of fair trade coops, organic agriculture, small farms and farmers' markets; becoming a sustainer of an organization like Pax Christi USA; using your writing skills to highlight issues in your local papers; supporting local campaigns for justice led by impoverished communities or communities of color; daily prayers for peace; etc. Be as creative as you like, remembering that your commitment is for the long haul.

Albany Catholic asks, "What are your resolutions?"

Slavery remembered (?)

2007-12-31T19:56:00.000-05:00

Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, writes in today’s New York Times:

We Americans live in a society awash in historical celebrations. The last few years have witnessed commemorations of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase (2003) and the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II (2005). Looming on the horizon are the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth (2009) and the sesquicentennial of the outbreak of the Civil War (2011). But one significant milestone has gone strangely unnoticed: the 200th anniversary of Jan. 1, 1808, when the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited.

We at Albany Catholic were surprised to learn this interesting fact. We suggest you read the entire article to learn more.

The Catholic Social Ministry Gathering

2007-12-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

The Catholic Social Ministry Gathering brings together more than 600 social ministry leaders from all over the United States and from national Catholic organizations for four days of prayer and reflection, witness and celebration.

This year’s event includes:

Opening plenary speaker is His Eminence Oscar Cardinal Rodriguez. Cardinal Rodriquez is the past president for CELAM and has served on several Pontifical Councils.

Two excellent presenters for the domestic and international plenary; Dr. Norman Francis and Ms. Lesley Knight, respectively. Dr. Norman Francis is the president of Xavier University in New Orleans and the recipient of the 2006 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ms. Lesley-Anne Knight is the recently elected General Secretary for Caritas Internationalis.

In additional to exciting general sessions, there will be plenty of opportunities to network and share ideas with social ministry leaders from across the country.

More importantly, you will be able to bring a message about key issues affecting the poor and vulnerable to our elected officials on Capitol Hill! The more people who participate in this effort, the more effective it will be.

More information is available here.

Advent calls believers to reflection, peace

2007-12-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

Catholic News Service reports on an event down the Hudson in Garrison, stomping ground of former Governor George Pataki:

During Advent, Catholics are called to "put on the armor of light, to be peacemakers beating swords of war and anger into plowshares, and to poke holes of light into the darkness which often seems to permeate our lives," according to Dominican Sister Anne Tahaney.

"The common themes of Advent, expectation and waiting in joyful hope call us to reflection and peace, yet tension and stress surround us in our own personal lives, and war and death and destruction loom daily before us in newscasts," she said.

Sister Tahaney spoke Dec. 2 at an Advent vespers service at Graymoor, headquarters of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. Others were scheduled to speak Dec. 9, 16 and 23.

This year's speakers were asked to reflect on "A Common Word Between Us and You," an October 2007 letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders signed by 138 senior Muslim leaders and later endorsed by dozens of others.

The letter highlights two theological similarities found in both the Quran and the New Testament: belief in one God and love of neighbor. The letter also proposes theological dialogue to find common ground.

"Finding common ground between Muslims and Christians is not simply a polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders," the Muslims wrote. "Christianity and Islam ... together make up more than 55 percent of the world's population, making the relationship between these two religious communities the most important factor in contributing to meaningful peace around the world.

You can read more here.

NETWORK

2007-11-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

NETWORK is a progressive voice within the Catholic community that has been influencing Congress in favor of peace and justice for more than 30 years. Through lobbying and legislative advocacy, we strive to close the gap between rich and poor and to dismantle policies rooted in racism, greed and violence.

NETWORK’s membership, which includes both individuals and organizations, represents more than 100,000 people. This vast constituency is committed and active. When our national office puts out the word that Congress needs to hear from our members on critical legislation, our members respond by calling, writing, emailing or visiting their Senators and Representatives, and by mobilizing others to take action as well.

Since our founding in 1971 by 47 Catholic sisters, NETWORK has been faithfully answering the Gospel call to act for justice. Albany Catholic is a member and we invite you to join us in support of this worthwhile endeavor:

The NETWORK Legislative Update is on recess this week, but I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your support, and let you know about an opportunity to help NETWORK continue to provide Legislative Updates and the Legislative Action Center on our web site.

Last week, one of our dear NETWORK supporters offered us a matching grant if we could raise $10,000 from our Legislative Update subscribers by the end of this year. We don't want to pass up this opportunity and I'm hopeful that you won't either. We're now open for online donations at our new secure donation page here. Any contribution you can make will be worth twice as much because of the matching grant.

As you know, NETWORK would not exist without our members and friends who support our advocacy. When you get our Legislative Update and respond to our requests to contact your members of Congress, you help our lobbying efforts enormously by being a constituent lobbyist. We really appreciate that. We also appreciate any financial contribution you can make to help with the costs of providing our online advocacy tools.

We can get matching funds for any donation you make now -- up to $10,000. I think we can do this! You can use your credit card and donate online or send a check to:

NETWORK Legislative Update
25 E St. NW
Suite 200
Washington DC 20001.

Thank you for all of your support - I hope you have a good Thanksgiving holiday.
Jean Sammon
NETWORK Organizer
www.networklobby.org

Stem cell breakthrough

2007-11-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

The New York State Catholic Conference hailed the breakthrough announced by stem cell researchers from Wisconsin and Japan that allows the creation of embryonic-like stem cells by reprogramming mature human cells, rather than destroying human embryos. The Conference urged the state government to pursue this research with the public funds earmarked in the New York State budget for stem cell research. Kathleen M. Gallagher, director of pro-life activities for the Catholic Conference, said:

Today marks the dawn of a new age for ethical scientific research and discovery. This breakthrough announced in two scientific journals appears to solve the ethical dilemmas of embryonic stem cell research and human cloning by eliminating the need for them. Instead, by simply adding four genes to an existing skin cell, the cell can be reprogrammed as a ‘pluripotent’ stem cell. The process appears to be easier, more cost efficient, scientifically promising and morally untroubling.

The entire statement is available here.

The Social Agenda

2007-11-20T21:43:00.000-05:00

The Social Agenda, A Collection of Magisterial Texts is a publication of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and available on-line here. The late Cardinal Francois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the former President Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and author of the forward, notes:

Students, teachers, and all those who seek a better knowledge of the social doctrine of the Church will find contained within this collection the central statements of the Roman Pontiffs from a range of texts, including papal encyclicals, apostolic letters, and Conciliar documents, on matters relating to politics, economics, and culture.

The selections are arranged thematically according to the significant subject areas of Catholic social doctrine. Under each subject heading, the quotations appear in pedagogical—as opposed to chronological or magisterial—order, with each subject area opening with a quotation that explains the issue at hand.

Albany Catholic recommends that you bookmark this one.

Contact Congress To Help Farm Workers Fight for AgJobs

2007-10-14T16:57:00.000-04:00

Farm workers do the hardest, most difficult jobs other workers don’t want. Their sweat and sacrifice help feed this nation. Yet, they are faced with fear and intimidation because many employers use the threat of deportation to ensure their silence. By fighting to pass AgJOBS, you can help the farm workers who feed this nation come out of the shadows.

AgJOBS (S. 340/H.R. 371) would allow undocumented farm workers to earn the right to permanently stay in this country by continuing to work in agriculture. AgJOBS was negotiated by the United Farm Workers and the agricultural industry and enjoys broad bipartisan support.

The United Farm Workers, a coalition of farm worker organizations, and the agricultural industry have been working diligently to ensure that AgJOBS passes this year. They have worked hard to ensure congressmembers hear the workers' story and understand the urgent need for AgJobs.

You can take action here.

Driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants

2007-10-12T20:06:00.000-04:00

Following is a statement from Richard E. Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, regarding Governor Spitzer’s plan to allow undocumented immigrants to access to New York State driver’s licenses:

“For the past several years, the Catholic Church has been involved in the area of comprehensive reform of our national immigration policies. In his executive action regarding identification requirements for state driver’s licenses, Governor Spitzer has addressed a problem that is in actuality a symptom of a larger problem that should be resolved ultimately by the federal government. Clearly, a balance must be struck between important homeland security concerns and certain economic realities. But the federal government has not instituted a comprehensive immigration policy; therefore these issues end up being addressed piecemeal by state and local governments. Given that reality, we believe that Governor Spitzer’s action was appropriate.

“While this matter is partially one of economic justice for the immigrants themselves, the state also has an economic interest at play. In certain sections of our state, we see labor market shortages, which are being filled by this population. In order to fill these positions, which are of critical importance to our state’s economic well being, the immigrant community needs valid licenses in order to get to the jobs.

“While the Church’s role is to speak to issues of human dignity and economic justice, the government’s role is to balance all of these needs, including the legitimate security issues that have been raised by others. We leave it to the Governor and other state officials to resolve these matters as they deem necessary to protect our citizenry, to ensure economic justice, and to meet the labor needs of business and industry.”

The Catholic Conference represents New York State’s Bishops in matters of public policy.

Labor Day

2007-09-03T10:01:00.000-04:00

The United State Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a Labor Statement entitled Labor Day 2007: A Time to Remember; A Time to Recommit. The brief text can be found here.

Albany Catholic recommends it as appropriate reading on this day set aside for recognizing those who work and the work they do.

America

2007-09-01T10:31:00.000-04:00

This is from the website of America, the Jesuit magazine:

Sadly our summer open house has come to an end. But you can still sign up for our special $12 offer. And we hope you will.

In the future, a selection of articles from America will be available to all those who register with the site. (Remember, registration is quick and FREE.) But to view all articles, you will need to be a subscriber.

The red "S" logo indicates which articles are subscriber-only.

As a subscriber, you will also have full access to our archives. Articles published more than one year ago are available to everyone who registers.

Finally, all of our Web-only content, including our blogs, podcasts and exclusive interviews, are free to everyone who visits our site. No need to register.

Thank you again for reading America. We hope you'll visit us again.

Here is the link to subscribe. We at Albany Catholic hope you take advantage of this special offer. We have.

We resolve

2007-08-22T20:30:00.000-04:00

An editorial in the latest issue of Catholic New York has an important editorial on a proposal that could severely limit and possibly eliminate the right of shareholders to sponsor advisory resolutions.

FOR YEARS, socially responsible investment groups—many of them faith-based—have used shareholder resolutions to bring to the attention of corporate boards their views on various issues aimed at nudging companies to do the right thing.

Most of the resolutions these days deal with issues such as climate change, executive pay and human rights and other social justice concerns. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were many resolutions calling for corporate disinvestment in South Africa over its apartheid policies. Others pressured companies to reject Northern Ireland hiring practices that discriminated against Catholics.

Resolutions that are accepted (and not all of them are) are placed on a corporation's annual proxy statement for a vote, which every shareholder receives. In that way, every person who holds a share in the company has a chance to weigh in on the issue.

Many of these resolutions have received overwhelming support from shareholders. They are, however, advisory only. Corporate boards do not have to address them.
Even so, shareholder resolutions have become an important way for small investors to have a say in the policies of companies in which they hold stock, and to hold them accountable for their practices. They are also a good way to raise corporate and public awareness of troubling issues.

The resolutions also, apparently, have opened a much-needed dialogue between corporate boards and their shareholders. John Wilson, director of socially responsible investing for Christian Brothers Investment Services in Manhattan and a member of the board of governors of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, says that a quarter of a century ago, no one wanted to listen to what CBIS had to say in board rooms and corporate annual meetings.

Today, the group is a respected force for positive change in corporate America and has encountered more and more instances where the management of major corporations—including Tyco and Newmont Mining— have actually encouraged shareholders to vote for CBIS-sponsored resolutions.

Clearly, more companies are seeing the value of dialogue with shareholders and have become more engaged and involved. To socially responsible investment groups, this is progress. Progress that would not have been made without the key tool of the shareholder resolution.

To learn about the threat to shareholder resolutions, go here.

Come to the picnic

2007-08-11T14:45:00.000-04:00

The 4th Annual Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace Picnic will be Sunday, August 12, from 3 p.m. until dusk at the Elm Avenue Park in Delmar.

Join us again this year for lots of conversation, great food, volley ball and a walk in the park. This will be a pot luck so please bring a dish to share and you own place settings if possible. We will have some extra place settings but would like to keep the garbage to a minimum. Thanks. See you there. Call or email Trudy if you are willing to help set up or clean up for this event. 391-2830 or tquaif@yahoo.com. Thanks. New members always welcome.

While you are at the Elm Avenue Park, stop by and visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall replica, visiting Delmar from August 8-12.

The American Flag

2007-08-04T16:50:00.001-04:00

Charlotte Aldebron, 12, wrote this essay for a competition in her 6th grade English class. She attends Cunningham Middle School in Presque Island, Maine.

What The American Flag Stands For

by Charlotte Aldebron

The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.

School children have to pledge loyalty to this cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.

Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag’s real meaning remains.

The essay was printed in the April 3, 2002 Common Dreams website. Charlotte’s mom, Jillian, said that her daughter’s teacher told Charlotte that she was unpatriotic.

Vacation time

2007-07-05T19:29:00.000-04:00

We at Albany Catholic are taking a few weeks off to rest and relax. If you would like us to keep posting when we return, please send an e-mail to AlbanyCatholicBlog@yahoo.com and let us know how you feel. If there are no messages when we get back, we will know it is time to move on to other endeavors.

In the meantime, please visit some of the links to the right.

Remember Egil Krogh?

2007-07-02T06:19:00.000-04:00

Egil Krogh, sentenced to prison for his role ion the Watergate scandal, is the author of the forthcoming “Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons From the White House.” He wrote in The New York Times about the need for integrity in government.

The Watergate break-in, described by Ron Ziegler, then the White House press secretary, as a “third-rate burglary,” passes its 35th anniversary this month. The common public perception is that Watergate was the principal cause of President Nixon’s downfall. In fact, the seminal cause was a first-rate criminal conspiracy and break-in almost 10 months earlier that led inexorably to Watergate and its subsequent cover-up.

. . At no time did I or anyone else there question whether the operation was necessary, legal or moral. Convinced that we were responding legitimately to a national security crisis, we focused instead on the operational details: who would do what, when and where.
. . .
The premise of our action was the strongly held view within certain precincts of the White House that the president and those functioning on his behalf could carry out illegal acts with impunity if they were convinced that the nation’s security demanded it. As President Nixon himself said to David Frost during an interview six years later, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” To this day the implications of this statement are staggering.
. . .
I finally realized that what had gone wrong in the Nixon White House was a meltdown in personal integrity. Without it, we failed to understand the constitutional limits on presidential power and comply with statutory law.

In early 2001, after President Bush was inaugurated, I sent the new White House staff a memo explaining the importance of never losing their personal integrity. In a section addressed specifically to the White House lawyers, I said that integrity required them to constantly ask, is it legal? And I recommended that they rely on well-established legal precedent and not some hazy, loose notion of what phrases like “national security” and “commander in chief” could be tortured into meaning. I wonder if they received my message.

The entire article is available here.

New's York First Catholic Governor

2007-06-30T10:15:00.000-04:00

A reader sent along this link to an article in last week's Evangelist about New York's first Catholic Governor:

In 1994, Dominick Lizzi wrote "Governor Martin H. Glynn: Forgotten Hero," a biography of New York State's first Catholic governor.

Thirteen years later, he has updated the book because "I don't want people to forget who he was and the great contributions this great man made to the state."

Mr. Lizzi, a member of St. John the Baptist parish in Valatie, is a retired social studies teacher and historian/archivist for the Town of Valatie. The new edition of the biography was sponsored by a government grant obtained by the Capital District Celtic Cultural Association.
. . .
Gov. Glynn himself is nearly invisible to New Yorkers due to his short term in office (he completed the term of another governor who had been impeached and removed from office) and his suicide in 1924.

In the prologue to the second edition of his book, Mr. Lizzi writes, "This forgotten governor was a man of dreams, a poor man who became rich, and a man of small stature that became a giant -- one who worked with Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan and William R. Hearst. He was among the powerbrokers of the Albany and Tammany [political] machines and he lit the sky of American Progressive politics."

As governor, Glynn was responsible for workers' compensation legislation in New York as well as laws that established length-of-workday rules and limited child labor.

As a result of Glynn's suicide, Mr. Lizzi said that his name was not spoken by the Irish Catholic community from which he came.

"To these people, his suicide was a disgrace," the author explained. "His name drifted into anonymity. They couldn't say bad things about him because he was a good man and he accomplished a lot in his lifetime. They simply stopped talking about him at all.

"He made so many changes that benefitted generations of New Yorkers. Growing up in the mill town of Valatie, he saw the direct result of suffering, poor wages, child labor and abuse. The unfortunate circumstances of his death caused him to be forgotten for too long. I hope to change that."

Albany Catholic wants to thank Pat Pasternak for writing this intersting article.

A Quote

2007-06-29T21:03:00.000-04:00

From today's Capitol Confidential, the blog of the Times Union newspaper:
Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.

–Benjamin Whichcote (courtesy of wisdomquotes.com)

Someone you should meet

2007-06-28T21:11:00.000-04:00

On his blog over at Sojourners, Jim Wallis writes an interesting piece about the new Prime Minister of Great Britain.

I want to introduce you to someone. His name is Gordon Brown, and he just became Britain's new Prime Minister. You have probably been hearing and reading the news about the transition from Tony Blair to Brown.

Among other things, Brown is a voracious reader, and reads many American books about politics, including those that focus on moral values and politics. That’s how I first met Gordon Brown: I was speaking in Britain and got a call from the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (his former position) saying that Brown wanted to get together that evening, if I was available. So I went over to his office at the Treasury, and he told me that he had read my books and had many questions for me. So we put our feet up and began talking, and have been doing so now for a number of years.
. . .
Gordon Brown is one of a new kind of political leader who seeks to practice moral politics. He has already worked very closely with the community of faith and seeks a vital partnership. He knows that even politicians like him need to be challenged and held accountable by social movements with spiritual foundations. He once told me that without Jubilee 2000, the church-based movement to cancel Third World debt, the Labor government would have never done so. He encouraged me to keep building such movements because the world of politics needs them.

Albany Catholic recommends reading the entire entry here.

Legal defense for the poor

2007-06-26T20:54:00.000-04:00

The Journal News down in White Plains ran the following editorial this week. It also applies to the poor in our area.

New York has an embarrassing record on state money spent on legal defense for poor people. Last year it spent $2.54 per poor person for civil legal services; in comparison, Massachusetts spent $16.50, New Jersey, $23.44 and Minnesota $32.33, according to the Legislative Gazette in Albany. Thanks to some new money in this year's state budget, and a new requirement that banks pay higher interest rates on accounts specifically set up to provide such services, New York will be a little less red in the face in the future.

The final 2007-'08 state budget includes long-awaited increases in money to provide legal assistance to the poor, with $6.8 million that was cut last year restored and $8 million in new funding. Long-awaiting the money were groups like Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, a not-for-profit that provides free legal service for low-income resident in the Lower Hudson Valley. Clients, including the elderly and the disabled, receive help in domestic violence cases, housing disputes and in securing public benefits.

Clients, agencies and Assembly Democrats pronounced themselves thrilled at the changes. "Year after year, we have faced an executive branch unwilling to fund civil legal services,'' said Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, in a press release. "It is a refreshing change to have a partner like Gov. Spitzer who believes that the words 'liberty and justice for all' should have meaning for all New Yorkers."

As important as the new money is, there is a proposed change in regulations afoot that also will bring in more recurring money. The Interest on Lawyer Account Fund was set up in 1983 with the support of the New York State Bar Association to provide additional financial support to civil legal service organizations. It has been decimated by federal budget cuts, Spitzer's office said. The IOLA program, which has given more than $154 million in grants since it was set up, requires attorneys to deposit funds from clients either in interest-bearing accounts for the benefit of the clients or in interest-bearing IOLA accounts.

Yet the interest on that IOLA account money has been pitiable. The top 80 banks that handle such funds have paid an average interest rate of less than 1 percent, even on accounts of more than $100,000.

New state regulations just out of Spitzer's office will require banks to pay a more competitive rate. At about 2.7 percent, the interest could total at least $45 million more a year for nonprofit legal services, it's estimated. No legislative action is needed for the fund change, but a 45-day comment period has begun, ending July 15. In addition to the applause, our only comment: It took, disgracefully, far too long for New York to do the right thing.

Albany Catholic has nothing to add, although we may have questions for those banks.

Sojourners on the Issues

2007-06-21T21:12:00.000-04:00

The mission of Sojourners is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world. Toward that end, they offer Sojourners on the Issues, a series of electronic study guides designed to spark discussion and thought about how to live out God's call for justice in our world. Each guide includes classic Sojourners articles (including many previously unavailable online), questions for discussion, and ideas for further study.

For the cost of $4.95 each, you'll be able to download your discussion guides immediately - easy to print, copy, and distribute to your Sunday school class, small group, or for study on your own.

You can learn more about this excellent program here.

The politics of the Sacred Heart

2007-06-19T20:08:00.000-04:00

Rev. John Dear S.J. is a Jesuit Priest, Peace Activist, Organizer, Lecturer, Retreat leader, and author/editor of 20 books on peace and nonviolence. In his latest column for National Catholic Reporter, he writes:

The image of the Sacred Heart invites us to practice universal love, eternal forgiveness, infinite compassion, active nonviolence and perfect peace. That means, among other things, we can no longer support killing, injustice, war, or any kind of violence. It means further that we must live out a new ethic and create new nonviolent structures that institutionalize nonviolent love, dignity and peace for every human being on the planet.

Alas, for centuries, the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been coopted into a private piety disconnected from the world, politics, and war -- from the abyss of destruction. I have the impression that some uphold the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the one hand, and the flag on the other, as if Jesus' personal salvation for us individually has nothing to do with what our country does, or how the poor suffer and die; as if we can worship the Sacred Heart, yet remain racist, sexist, greedy, selfish, violent, and warlike, personally and as a church and a nation.

You can read more here.

Did you miss us?

2007-06-18T20:23:00.000-04:00

We are back in business after an unplanned hiatus, and because we ar e backlogged, we will begin with some material lifted directly from some other websites. We found this particularly interesting:

It would surprise few people, conservative or progressive, to learn that coverage of the intersection of religion and politics tends to oversimplify both. If this oversimplification occurred to the benefit or detriment of neither side of the political divide, then the weaknesses in coverage of religion would be of only academic interest. But as this study documents, coverage of religion not only overrepresents some voices and underrepresents others, it does so in a way that is consistently advantageous to conservatives.

The report is called Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media. Among the study's key findings:

Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.

On television news -- the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS -- conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

Despite the fact most religious Americans are moderate or progressive, in the news media it is overwhelmingly conservative leaders who are presented as the voice of religion. This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts.

You can read more here.

Memorial Day

2007-05-27T22:17:00.000-04:00

From America Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith program:

Chaplain Major John Morris offers his rare and challenging insights into the spiritual aspect of our current conflicts, and the spiritual imprint that war always leaves on soldiers, citizens, and a nation.

Let's talk about love your enemies. That's sorely tested in combat. I think, in a very chilling way, I came to the abyss of hate in Fallujah. The body parts of four Americans charred and hanging off a bridge over the Euphrates brought me to a point where I could truly sense myself going down a vortex of hate, that in a city, people were harbored who were that debased. And so at that point, I felt that I was crossing a line to say, "Yes, these people's time on the planet is over, they need to leave. There's no second chance, there's no other form of justice. They have forfeited all rights to humanness." That was a chilling, chilling moment for me because I knew I was entering a new territory. And once you cross this line, there's no coming back.

When do I become like them? I found myself fueled with a sense of hatred that I could easily have said, you know, "Hey, I'm God's wrath. We are God's wrath. This needs to be taken care of." The only thing that pulled me back from that was the power of the Holy Spirit, all the Christian disciplines, and my sense of understanding that, wait a minute, as much as I abhor everything that's done, and as much as I believe what was done was evil, and that if these people don't come out and surrender, there's only one alternative, that is to go in and kill them or apprehend them. I knew I could not cross that line and say, "OK, God's on my side, and here we go." No, this is chaos, this is human fallenness to the max, and we're using the most brutal tool of human society, the military, to solve a very, very terrible problem. And this isn't God here, this is fallen human beings. So God help me and have mercy on me. I'm a part of something like this, and I prayed that it wouldn't be, but here we are. Save me from becoming a debased, immoral human being. And save my soldiers as well.

Albany Catholic hopes you have a Memorial Day to remember, and we believe that Major Morris' words will help you do that, here.