Listening to others re-scheduled

"Forum on War: Do the Peace Movement and the Tea Party Movement agree?" has been re-scheduled to Thursday, March 4th at 7 p.m. (doors open 6:30 pm) at The Linda, WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio, Central Ave and Quail Street in Albany. Details, from the previous post:.

The "Right, Left, and In Between Dialogue" planning committee presents the third in a series of local public forums, bringing together representatives of widely diverse thoughts.

The public is invited to hear speakers from many sides of the issue, and to participate in the discussion. The format will be three speakers from each perspective, and a moderator.

The firt part will be approximately 30 minutes, with each speaker giving introductory remarks of about five minutes each. Speakers will alternate between "right" and "left" viewpoints.

The second part, also approximately 30 minutes, will have the speakers asking each other questions, and discussing their areas of agreement and disagreement. The third part will have audience members posing questions to the speakers.

Speakers include: Joe Lombardo, Jason Peterson, Mabel Leon, Patrick S. Zeigler, Steven Vasquez and John Minehan.

Contact: Dennis Karius at 518-456-5721. Sponsored by: the Right, Left and In Between Dialogue Planning Committee, consisting of people who are active members in the following local organizations: MoveOn.org Capital Region Council , Campaign for Liberty, Interfaith Alliance of NYS, 9-12 Project, Capital District Greens, We The People, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, John Birch Society, Labor-Religion Coalition of the Capital District/Jobs with Justice, and ARISE (A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment).

Listening to others

"Forum on War: Do the Peace Movement and the Tea Party Movement agree?"

Wednesday, February 24, 7-9 pm, WAMC Linda Norris Auditorium, 339 Central Ave (at Quail St), Albany.

The "Right, Left, and In Between Dialogue" planning committee presents the third in a series of local public forums, bringing together representatives of widely diverse thoughts.

The public is invited to hear speakers from many sides of the issue, and to participate in the discussion. The format will be three speakers from each perspective, and a moderator.

The firt part will be approximately 30 minutes, with each speaker giving introductory remarks of about five minutes each. Speakers will alternate between "right" and "left" viewpoints.

The second part, also approximately 30 minutes, will have the speakers asking each other questions, and discussing their areas of agreement and disagreement. The third part will have audience members posing questions to the speakers.

Speakers include: Joe Lombardo, Jason Peterson, Mabel Leon, Patrick S. Zeigler, Steven Vasquez and John Minehan.

Contact: Dennis Karius at 518-456-5721. Sponsored by: the Right, Left and In Between Dialogue Planning Committee, consisting of people who are active members in the following local organizations: MoveOn.org Capital Region Council , Campaign for Liberty, Interfaith Alliance of NYS, 9-12 Project, Capital District Greens, We The People, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, John Birch Society, Labor-Religion Coalition of the Capital District/Jobs with Justice, and ARISE (A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment).

Victims in Israel and Paelstine

Speaking of Faith (SOF) is a weekly radio program about religion, spirituality, and large questions of meaning in every aspect of life. This week’s show is especially interesting.

Robi Damelin lost her son David to a Palestinian sniper. Ali Abu Awwad lost his older brother Yousef to an Israeli soldier. But, instead of clinging to traditional ideologies and turning their pain into more violence, they've decided to understand the other side — Israeli and Palestinian — by sharing their pain and their humanity. They tell of a gathering network of survivors who share their grief, their stories of loved ones, and their ideas for lasting peace. They don't want to be right; they want to be honest.

You can learn more here.

Read the first letter Robi wrote to the family of the sniper who killed her son, here, and her letter to a defiant public response by the sniper who killed her son, here.

Robbery during Lent?

Sister Joyce Rupp offers a Lenten reflection in National Catholic Reporter that begins as follows:

Imagine you are an archbishop going for a walk in a spacious cemetery. It’s a chilly Lenten day. You’re weary from a long day’s work, and haven’t even taken time to get out of your work clothes because of yet another meeting in the evening. Soon after you settle into a comfortable pace, a poorly dressed man walks in your direction. As he draws close to you, he stops. The next thing you know he’s thrusting a knife at your neck, demanding “money or your life.”

Your billfold’s at home. There’s no money to give. The assailant keeps insisting. Frightened out of your wits, you remember you stuck a snack in your pocket. You point to the candy bar and tell him it’s all you’ve got -- he can have it. At this suggestion, the man looks at you in utter disbelief and protests, “No way, Father. I don’t eat chocolate during Lent.”

You’ll have to go here to know the rest of the story.

Lent and chocolate

At the Busted Halo website maintained by the Paulist Fathers, we learn this amazing fact:

LENT AND CHOCOLATE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER!

For countless people — both Catholic and non-Catholic — Lent has somehow become known as the time of year for giving up chocolate. Why? Well, the truth is, nobody really seems to know for sure, but unless a Gnostic gospel according to Willy Wonka is discovered in a cave somewhere we’re pretty sure that simply removing all cocoa-related products from your diet doesn’t necessarily deepen your spiritual life.
. . .
In order to rescue Lent from the chocolate-abstinence zombie that lives inside many of us, Busted Halo® decided to approach the season from a completely different perspective and actually give chocolate away to our readers during Lent.

To figure this out, go here.

Justice-peace head says what he thinks

John L. Allen Jr. of National Catholic Reporter writes about the new president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in an article titled Vatican's justice-peace head says what he thinks:

Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana was named the new president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in late October, just as his debut on the global Catholic stage as the relator, or general secretary, of the Synod for Africa ended. It was in some ways a baptism by fire for the 61-year-old Ghanian prelate, introducing him among other things to the press climate in Rome. A few fairly innocent comments from Turkson about condoms, and about the prospect of a black pope, briefly became a cause célèbre in the Italian papers and prompted the Vatican to issue a swift "clarification."

As Turkson now puts it, he was forced to realize that in conversation he may say things with a smile, but in print "the smile never comes across."

Still, Turkson said he doesn't want "circumspection" to get in the way of saying what he thinks. He'd rather speak the truth, he said, and run the risk of being misunderstood.

In a Feb. 12 interview with NCR at his Vatican office (delayed by a couple of hours because of a rare Roman snowstorm that morning), Turkson displayed precisely such a willingness to take risks. On the environment, he rejected complaints that the Vatican, and Pope Benedict XVI, have been naïve in buying into global warming and climate change, saying that for a guy whose island is now under water or a farmer who doesn't know when to plant crops, "this isn't hysteria." On immigration, he bluntly said that Europeans "can't have their cake and eat it too," complaining about new arrivals but refusing to have children of their own.

The rest of the article is available here.

Ethics reform in New York State has been in the news for some time. Last month the state Legisalture approved a reform proposal which subsequently was vetoed by the Governor. This week, the Assembly voted to override that veto, but the Senate did not. The Brennan Center at New York University, which has called our Legislature the most dysfunctional in the nation, had the following analysis on their blog ReformNY yesterday before the vote.

Following on last week’s veto of the legislature’s ethics bill, legislative leaders are meeting today behind closed doors to determine whether they have the votes necessary for an override.

The good news is that the bill’s sponsor, Senator Schneiderman, seems to recognize that the legislature’s work isn’t done. Schneiderman introduced two bills, one more ambitious than the other, that amend the original ethics bill to move closer to certain reforms that the governor has cited as necessary for the legislation to win his approval. The two new bills each deal with different issues in the original bill, S6457. Notably, the bill that is narrower in scope has a "same as" number in the Assembly; the more ambitious bill does not.

On Friday, Senator Schneiderman introduced S6792, a technical corrections bill that addresses some of more basic points of contention in the debate surrounding the original legislation by making the following changes:

Explicitly grants the lobbying commission to conduct any investigation necessary to carry out its mandate, fixing the problem we and others identified with the commission’s mandate to receive referrals but inability to investigate them;
Establishes a procedure for addressing tie votes on the governing board overseeing the legislative office of ethics investigations;

Explicitly requires each conference to appoint one legislator and one non-legislator to the legislative ethics commission;

Creates additional offices on the Board of Elections with deputies of opposite political parties;

Requires the Board of Elections enforcement counsel to report allegations that she does not deem a violation of law to the Board of Elections for a second opinion; and

Allows the deputy enforcement counsel to review both preliminary and final investigation files and issue a public, written concurrence or dissent.

The entire blog entry is available here, as are several others that address this issue. We agree with the final lines of the current posting:

We’re glad to see some recognition that the legislature’s work on ethics is far from finished. We’ll be gladder still if both proposals are subjected to thorough public review.

Action Alert

The New York State Catholic Conference has issued the following Action Alert:

Stop the Statute of Limitations Bill
Senate committee considers bill to bring new suits against churches and schools

A bill in the NYS Senate would open up the civil statute of limitations for decades-old claims of sexual abuse against both public and private entitites. The bill would have a devastating impact on the Catholic Church and other churches, as well as on public schools and municipalities. The bill would allow people to bring lawsuits that are potentially more than 50 years old. It can be expected to result in billions of dollars of claims against public schools, counties and towns, wreaking havoc on budgets and causing property taxes to skyrocket. In addition, it will severely impact the ministries of any not-for-profit organization that has dealt with minors over the past half century, including the Catholic Church and its programs and schools. The Senate Codes Committee is considering this bill this Tuesday, February 9. Please contact Sen. Neil D. Breslin, who sits on this committee. Go HERE to send a prewritten, editable message, asking Sen. Neil D. Breslin to vote no on S.5893!

Bishop Hubbard discusses immigration reform

Bishop Howard Hubbard discusses immigration reform in his monthly column in The Evangelist:

This year, our Diocese of Albany is one of many in the country seeking to educate our members about the need for comprehensive immigration reform, and to encourage our people to advocate with the President and Congress in addressing this urgent issue.

The Church’s concern about the migration of people has its foundation in the Scriptures; this phenomenon is a common thread throughout the Old and New Testament.

In Exodus, for example, we read of the Israelites, who flee the oppression of Egypt and wander in the wilderness for 40 years, until God leads them to a new home, Israel.

In the New Testament, exile and homelessness mark the life of Christ, as well. In Matthew, the child Jesus and the Holy Family flee as refugees to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod.

As an adult, Jesus is an itinerant preacher who travels throughout Galilee and Judea to spread his message. He tells us: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head.”
. . . .

Hence, policies that address the root cause of migration must include the following principles:

1. People have the right to find opportunities within their own homeland: They have the right not to migrate. This principle emphasizes that all people have the right to find in their own countries the economic, political and social opportunities to live in dignity and not be compelled to migrate.

2. People have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families where conditions do not exist to meet their basic needs. Unfortunately, U.S. immigration laws and policies have become outdated and even harmful to some immigrants and asylum seekers.

As already noted, between 10 and 12 million people in the U.S. live on the margins of our society for lack of proper immigration documentation. Immigrants who are legal permanent residents in the U.S. who want to reunite with close family members must often wait 10 or more years for visas for their relatives.

Enforcement strategies employed along our southern border have resulted in thousands of deaths and have not resulted in a decrease in migration flows. Asylum seekers who flee persecution in their home countries and look for safe haven in the U.S. instead find themselves detained as criminals.

Immigration reform in the United States, then, should include a path to permanent residency which is achievable and family unification which allows immediate family members to join workers.

3. Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders. The Church does not promote an “open border” immigration policy, but rather policies that ensure safe, legal and orderly immigration and address the needs of both migrant families and impacted communities.

4. The human dignity and human rights of all migrants should be respected. Regardless of their legal status, migrants, like all persons, possess inherent human dignity and human rights that should be respected. Enforcement and border control practices should respect the human dignity of migrants.

In sum, the Church must work to reduce the need for people to migrate and to protect those people who have little choice but to do so. Our long-term goal is equitable and sustainable development for all peoples, so that migration is driven by choice, not by desperation.

The entire column can be found here.

Building Peace with Justice

Building Peace with Justice is a brief, weekly bulletin reflection on Catholic social teaching written by members of a Rochester Diocese Public Policy sub-committee. This is the reflection for February 21:

Today’s Gospel for this first Sunday of Lent offers a compelling call to discern and act on what is important. The temptation to self-concern, self-importance, self-sufficiency can blind us to the reality that we are one human family. The United States has consistently received immigrants, refugees, exiles and the persecuted from other lands seeking liberty and opportunity for themselves and their children. In their joint pastoral letter, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, the Catholic Bishops of the United States and Mexico teach, “We seek to awaken our peoples to the mysterious presence of the crucified and risen Lord in the person of the migrant and to renew in them the values of the Kingdom of God.”

How would/should this awakening shape our perspectives on immigration issues?