Peace & Justice

Black Catholics

2012-02-15T16:55:00.000-05:00

There are black Catholics, and they have a story to tell.

Strategies for a New Economy

2012-02-14T16:05:00.002-05:00

The New Economics Institute is convening Strategies for a New Economy, a conference June 8-10th at Bard College, located in Annandale-on-Hudson.

It will gather together what are often diverse and scattered efforts to reshape our economic system, place them under one tent, and raise the flag to announce that transitioning to a new economy will mean engaging politicians, researchers, media, educators, citizen activists, business leaders, financial experts, scientists, union workers, cultural leaders, advocates for the disenfranchised, and youth -- all working together to achieve a common goal.

The three-day conference will include over 60 workshops, plenary gatherings, and participatory strategizing sessions organized in 10 theme areas (see below). "Strategies for a New Economy" will highlight best research and best practice under each theme and ultimately demonstrate that a decentralized, sustainable, cooperative economy is already taking shape, offering a strategy for action.

Details about registration and workshops was available here.

Worse than we thought?

2012-02-13T08:40:00.002-05:00

The Times Union has an article today (from The New York World) that shows how partisan the redistricting process has been in New York:

The new boundaries for state Senate and Assembly districts proposed by New York's legislative redistricting task force would increase the number of seats held by the majority parties in both chambers, an analysis by The New York World has found.

In the closely contested state Senate, the Republican Party's precarious 32-to-30 majority would expand to 34 to 29 if each 2012 voter cast his or her ballot in support of the same party as in the 2010 elections.

In the Assembly, the comfortable 98-to-50 advantage the Democrats enjoyed following 2010's elections would also increase, to 102-to-48.

"You can't put a good face on this," said Douglas Muzzio, a professor at the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College and an expert in New York politics. "It gives real empirical weight to the argument that there is total partisanship in redistricting."

We realize that some people may find this discouraging. However, we think it should energize those of us who favor a less partisan process. Since one of the co-chairs of the task force that devised this scheme is a local legislator, we suggest that you call his office to express your dissatisfaction. That legislator is Jack McEneny, and his office telephone number 518-455-4178.

Priests choose to stay in Syria

2012-02-12T20:44:00.001-05:00

According to the Vatican's nuncio to Syria, Archbishop Mario Zenari, some priests have decided to stay in battle-scarred Homs, even as government forces intensified their strikes against the heart of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. From Catholic News Service:

Archbishop Mario Zenari told Catholic News Service in an email Feb. 9 that he had been in almost daily contact with priests in Homs and that "with respect to their safety, the situation is, in certain respects, uncertain."

"The decision to remain is theirs," Archbishop Zenari said. "This morning a priest told me that it was impossible to leave the city. Various Catholic families have left the city of Homs in recent days.

"In situations where their own lives and those of their family members are at risk, as is now the case in Homs, the choice to remain or depart must be left to each individual," he added.

The archbishop also advised Christians throughout much of the rest of Syria to remain in the country "except for situations in which one's own life and those of one's family members are in danger."

The rest of the article is here.

Scarves for Africa

2012-02-10T07:59:00.001-05:00

Sister Marian Hamwey, DC, a member of the Commission on Peace and Justice who spent 31 years ministering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly called Zaire), writes in The Evangelist about the current situation there and what we can do to help.

Tragically, in the eastern part of the country, the rebel factions, the Congolese army and even "peacekeepers" are perpetrating some of the most heinous violence and sexual abuse in human history against women and children: Rape and torture have become ordinary means of revenge or of exercising control in many villages.

Our sisters from the area as well as human rights advocates do their best to make public these ongoing atrocities, which occur far from the media's cameras.

Toward the end of 2011, representatives to the United Nations from the Sisters of Charity in the U.S. and Canada formed a project to support the violated women and girls of Eastern Congo: Since, by their mid-teens, most girls in the DRC wear a head covering, we took the simple step of collecting and distributing colorful scarves to express our solidarity with them and affirm their dignity and value at a time when their self-esteem is profoundly wounded.

The Women of Charity are not saving the whole world, but they surely are giving solace and joy to our Congolese sisters during their personal crises. Numerous other groups in the U.S. and Canada have joined in this project, sending scarves of all sizes and colors, purchased or handmade, and contributions to assist with shipping.

As part of your Lenten observance, I invite you to send a scarf or monetary donation to the Albany Diocese's Commission on Peace and Justice. The commission will ensure that the scarves reach their destination.

The entire article is here.

Public Policy Day

2012-02-08T07:22:00.001-05:00

The New York State Catholic Conference’s 2012 public policy day, Catholics at the Capitol, will be held on Tuesday, March 13, at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany.

There is no registration fee. An on-line registratiion form is available here. Trainnig materials will be available here in coming days. You will be contacted with further information regarding buses and local training sessions. (Note: the Albany and Ogdensburg Dioceses will not be providing transportation.)

Additional note: Knights of Columbus members and their families who are coming to Albany with their councils, and who are not planning to participate in legislative meetings, should not register through the NYS Catholic Conference or their diocese. Please contact Marty Ryan, State Chairman, at PGKFDD@optonline.net for bus information and other details.

Rest in peace, Bishop Estabrook

2012-02-07T07:46:00.001-05:00

Catholic News Services reports on the death of Bishop Joseph W. Estabrook, a priest of the Diocese of Albany:

Auxiliary Bishop Joseph W. Estabrook of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services died Feb. 4 in Houston following a lengthy illness. He was 67 years old. A priest of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y., where he was born, he was ordained an auxiliary for the military archdiocese in July 2004. He had been a chaplain in the Navy since 1977, earning the rank of captain in 1995. He retired from the Navy in September 2004. His body was to be received the evening of Feb. 9, followed by prayer, at Good Shepherd Church in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Va. A funeral Mass was to be celebrated at the church the next morning.

A Memorial Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany. Viewing hours will be held in Albany at the Cathedral on Saturday, February 11 from 9:30 a.m. until 11.a.m.. Interment will take place at Calvary Cemetery in Glenmont, New York following the Memorial Mass.

Bishop Howard Hubbard, who will be the principal celebrant of the Memorial Mass, said: “Bishop Estabrook was a man of solid spirituality and pastoral sensitivity, and his premature passing marks a real loss for the Church and for the military. As a priest of the Albany diocese, he ministered effectively both in parish work and as director of our diocesan office of family life. As a Navy chaplain, he blended a gentle disposition with moral strength; as a result, military men and women frequently sought him out at times of special stress. He also served as an effective retreat master for Navy personnel and their families, as well as a capable recruiter of military chaplains. My sympathy goes especially to Bishop Estabrook’s dear mother and his family, and my prayers accompany him as he goes to his reward in the peace of God’s presence.”

The homilist at Saturday’s Memorial Mass will be Rev. Richard Vosko, a nationally-recognized liturgical architect who is an Albany diocesan priest and a classmate of Bishop Estabrook.

Redistricting cynicism?

2012-02-06T12:58:00.003-05:00

City & State, the only publication in New York devoted solely to covering government and politics in the city and state, has an interesting article about the status and future of redistricting, and it does not seem promising.

This was the year redistricting was supposed to work. Guess what?

Everyone but the winners in New York State’s unfair system of drawing election districts agrees New Yorkers deserve better. This was the year they were supposed to get it. But nothing has changed.

In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one, the Legislature has once again drawn maps that will all but guarantee they have to split the spoils of running the Assembly and Senate.

The lawmakers who promised to do better went back on their word. The governor who promised to veto unfair lines may be going soft. The good-government groups that hoped for change have once again been ignored.

[snip]

Cuomo and the Senate Republicans will survive the lie, experts predict. Republicans have vastly outraised Democrats in Senate fund-raising, and with the defection of four Democrats from the conference, there is little chance they will regain the majority. Part of an announced compromise could include a constitutional amendment, but many people doubt it will pass.

“It’s a smokescreen,” one prominent Republican said. “They always say ‘constitutional amendment’ when they want a good talking point. It has to pass two consecutive Legislatures and then put it on the ballot. There’s no way that ever happens. I wouldn’t fall for that. That doesn’t happen. That just doesn’t happen.”

Cuomo, he said, will say he did all he could.

“He throws his hands up, life goes on, next issue. A couple of bad editorials come out, the public doesn’t give a damn, and then you’ve got 10 years to recover from it,” the Republican said. “If you polled, you’d be lucky if you got one or two percent of the people that care about that.”

The consultant paused a moment, and then apologized for sounding so cynical, before predicting the way it would go down over the next few weeks.

“It’ll be two days of outrage,” the source said, “and then it’s on to the budget.”

Perhaps, if more people contacted their representatives to express outrage, legislators might be more responsive. You can be one of those people by contacting the Senate switchboard at 518-455-2800 and the Assembly switchboard at 518-455-4100. Feel free to tell someone you read about it here.

Redistricting reactions

2012-01-30T15:15:00.003-05:00

The proposed new legislative districts drawn up by legislative task force on redistricting were released last week and the response was, shall we say, not enthusiastic.

They have been called maps that resemble an art project at Satan's Kindergarten and clearly the most gerrymandered lines in recent New York history.

Common Cause says that the proposed districts egregiously disadvantage minority communities, abuse the federally mandated principle of 'one person one vote', and violate the constitutional provision to avoid crossing county lines whenever possible.

The Daily News opines, "Nothing less than the future of representative democracy in New York is on the line as the Legislature establishes new district lines based on the latest census."

There is more, much more, that we will be commenting on in coming days. For now, however, read these reactions and think about what you are going to do to restore fairness to the redistricting process. As people of faith, we believe that this is a matter of justice that must be addressed.

Do facts matter?

2012-01-23T08:19:00.002-05:00

One of the reasons for this blog’s existence is the belief that when people have all the facts, they will act in a rational way. Apparently, that belief may not be based on reality. From the Boston Globe:

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but it’s an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
. . .
. . . it appears that misinformed people often have some of the strongest political opinions. A striking recent example was a study done in the year 2000, led by James Kuklinski of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He led an influential experiment in which more than 1,000 Illinois residents were asked questions about welfare — the percentage of the federal budget spent on welfare, the number of people enrolled in the program, the percentage of enrollees who are black, and the average payout. More than half indicated that they were confident that their answers were correct — but in fact only 3 percent of the people got more than half of the questions right. Perhaps more disturbingly, the ones who were the most confident they were right were by and large the ones who knew the least about the topic. (Most of these participants expressed views that suggested a strong antiwelfare bias.)

The rest of this fascinating article is here.

Help for Haiti

2012-01-16T08:52:00.002-05:00

Catholic News Service has a blog posting on the situation in Haiti, now more than two years after it was struck by a powerful earthquake:

. . . More than 316,000 people died; an estimated 500,000 people — a third of the original 1.5 million people left homeless — remain in tattered shelters in hundreds of settlements in and around the capital of Port-au-Prince.

While a sizable amount of rubble from collapsed buildings has been removed, the capital still bears signs of the destruction with structures askew and little reconstruction in place. The collapsed National Palace, which housed the offices of the president, still sits silently across from Champs de Mars Park, where 20,000 people remain camped. The scene serves as a stark reminder of the perilous struggle Haiti faces.

Aid workers and other observers find any progress distressingly slow. About $2.4 billion of the $4.5 billion pledged by the world’s governments meeting in New York two months after the quake has been received, the United Nations Office of the Special Envoy to Haiti reported. Even less actually has been spent.

To learn more, go here.

What, you might ask, have Catholics been doing to help?
Catholic Relief Services reports that it has:

- Built 10,600 transitional shelters

- Provided 10 million meals to more than 1 million people

- Organized medical teams that performed more than 1,000 emergency surgeries and conducted 71,000 outpatient consultations

- Helped workers crush enough rubble to fill almost 1,800 dump trucks

- Hired more than 12,000 people in temporary cash-for-work programs

To learn what you can do, go here.

NYADP

2012-01-15T20:51:00.001-05:00

James Acker, a professor at the University at Albany’s School of Criminal Justice, and psychologist Allison Redlich have a new book called “Wrongful Conviction: Law, Science, and Policy.” He was interviewed in the Troy Record about his book and his work with David Kaczynski and New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, whose offices are in the diocesan Pastoral Center.

Now that New York no longer has the death penalty, a portion of David's energies have been channeled toward bringing communities together to help prevent and find constructive solutions to violent crime. Along with others at the School of Criminal Justice, I have begun working with David and his colleagues at NYADP to try to gain a deeper understanding of what family members experience following the murder of a loved one and how the criminal justice system and other resources can help be responsive to their needs.

The entire interview is here.

Americans' views on immigration

2012-01-13T07:59:00.001-05:00

What do Americans really think about immigration and immigrants? A new survey from Public Religion Research Institute offers some answers.

Americans’ views on immigration policy are complex, but when Americans are asked to choose between a comprehensive approach to immigration reform that couples enforcement with a path to citizenship on the one hand, and an enforcement and deportation only approach on the other, Americans prefer the comprehensive approach to immigration reform over the enforcement only approach by a large margin (62 percent vs. 36 percent).

. . .

Americans express strong support for the basic tenets of the DREAM Act: allowing illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain legal resident status if they join the military or go to college

. . .

The survey findings suggest that we are in the midst of a struggle over what growing religious, racial and ethnic diversity means for American politics and society, and that partisan and ideological polarization around these questions will make them difficult to resolve.

You can read more here.

National Migration Week

2012-01-10T09:14:00.002-05:00

This is National Migration Week. From the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Just as on the road to Emmaus, Christ's disciples met him in the guise of a stranger, this year's theme helps remind us that Christ makes himself present to each of us in the lonesome traveler, the newcomer, and the migrant. We are called to open our hearts and provide hospitality to those in need. It is our duty to create a space of welcome and acceptance to the migrant who finds himself or herself far away from home and in a vulnerable situation.

Go here for more information and resources.

A Pedagogy of Hope

2012-01-09T19:27:00.002-05:00

Over at the blog Catholic Moral Theology, Jessica Wrobleski, a professor at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, has an entry titled Developing a Pedagogy of Hope in 2012. Fortunately, the article is better than the title.

Recently, I was beginning work on the syllabus for RST 230: Catholic Social Thought (which fulfills a general education requirement, and is one of my favorite classes to teach) when I read Pope Benedict XVI’s Message for World Day of Peace 2012, “Educating Young People in Justice and Peace.” As someone who feels called to work in Catholic undergraduate education (and who still counts herself among the “young”), I could not help but feel a particular challenge from this year’s message: how can I more effectively contribute to my students’ education in freedom and truth, in justice and peace and hope in the year ahead?
. . .

I’ll admit, I have found that cultivating a true hope—and not simply naïve or false optimism—is one of the greatest challenges of educating youth in justice and peace. I sometimes struggle with how it is possible to open students’ eyes and hearts to the world’s injustice and violence—the depths of global inequalities of opportunity and development, the injustice and danger of an industrial food system and excessive dependence on fossil fuels, the trauma of generations of people who have never known life without daily threats of violence and conflict and war—without smothering the hope that must nurture and carry forth action on behalf of justice and peace. In my brief experience as a teacher of Catholic Social Thought, I have found that it is not difficult to awaken students to the need for justice and peace in the world, but they often feel overwhelmed by the magnitude and complexity of the issues involved. With each subsequent semester that I have taught this course, I have deliberately tried to foster a pedagogy that can call forth hope as well as teaching truth. I offer a few thoughts toward this end here—by no means as an expert, but rather in the spirit of seeking and sharing in collected wisdom—with the hope that others will do so as well in comments or in other posts here.

The entire blog post is here.

Who are "the one percent?"

2012-01-08T19:35:00.002-05:00

CNN Money reports that Americans make up half of the world's richest 1%, although it is important to read the entire article to get the full picture:

The United States holds a disproportionate amount of the world's rich people.

It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. That's for each person living under the same roof, including children. (So a family of four, for example, needs to make $136,000.)

So where do these lucky rich people live? As of 2005 -- the most recent data available -- about half of them, or 29 million lived in the United States, according to calculations by World Bank economist Branko Milanovic in his book The Haves and the Have-Nots.
. . .

The true global middle class, falls far short of owning a home, having a car in a driveway, saving for retirement and sending their kids to college. In fact, people at the world's true middle -- as defined by median income -- live on just $1,225 a year. (And, yes, Milanovic's numbers are adjusted to account for different costs of living across the globe.)

In the grand scheme of things, even the poorest 5% of Americans are better off financially than two thirds of the entire world.

The rest of the article is here.

Catholic Conference Announces Legislative Agenda

2012-01-05T07:54:00.001-05:00

The New York State Catholic Conference Legislative Agenda for 2012 is available on-line. From the Introduction:

In his 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

The sounds of silence

2012-01-02T09:28:00.002-05:00

The writer Pico Iyer, who likes to spend time at a Benedictine hermitage, has published an interesting article in The New York Times about getting away from our electronic devices to enter a world of stillness, and about how it is becoming, of all things, trendy.

. . . I read an interview with the perennially cutting-edge designer Philippe Starck. What allowed him to remain so consistently ahead of the curve? “I never read any magazines or watch TV,” he said, perhaps a little hyperbolically. “Nor do I go to cocktail parties, dinners or anything like that.” He lived outside conventional ideas, he implied, because “I live alone mostly, in the middle of nowhere.”

Around the same time, I noticed that those who part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms.

Has it really come to this?

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

While one of goals here is to encourage people to be involved in the world and in matters of peace and justice, we suggest that you begin the new year by reading this article and making time for stillness in your own life. There is a time for action and a time for contemplation. We hope that this article helps you begin to find the balance in your life.

Asian-American voters disenfranchised?

2011-12-31T08:21:00.002-05:00

Are Asian-American voters in New York disenfranchised by the way election districts are set up in the state? Members of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund think so. According to an article in the Daily News:

Asian-American voters in Queens and Brooklyn sued the governor and other state officials this week, saying their voting power is unfairly limited by the way the state’s legislative districts are drawn.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a complaint Wednesday on behalf of four New Yorkers, arguing they must get equal political representation when the state rejiggers district lines after the most recent census.

"The current district lines are invalid under the U.S. Constitution and state law because Asian Americans' votes count less than the votes of other New Yorkers,” said Glenn Magpantay, director of AALDEF's Democracy Program.

The way lines are currently drawn, AALDEF argues, the city’s largest Asian-American neighborhoods are split up into different districts, breaking up what could be a powerful voting block.

While New York City’s Asian-American population spiked by 32% to over one million in the past ten years, according to the census, there is only one Asian-American representative in the entire state legislature — Flushing Assemblywoman Grace Meng.

Because the lines are currently drawn by a state task force largely made up of legislators themselves, critics say pols simply try to move boundaries to help their own party’s interest, sometimes creating wacky shapes.

The rest of the article is here.

The 1,000 Faith Leaders Initiative

2011-12-30T08:31:00.003-05:00

Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, in his role as Chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is one of the early signatories to a letter on a letter to President Obama urging the Administration to embrace economic justice for the world’s poorest with international financial reform and debt cancellation.

The letter is an initiative of the Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of more than 75 religious denominations and faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups working for the definitive cancellation of crushing debts to fight poverty and injustice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. From the Jubilee website:

This spring, Jubilee is bringing together faith leaders from across the country to advocate for debt relief. Our goal is to gather more than 1,000 signatures on a letter to President Obama urging the Administration to embrace economic justice for the world’s poorest with international financial reform and debt cancellation.

With you and your faith community’s activism, we can continue to break the cycle of debt that impoverishes countries and their citizens.

What is the Faith Leaders Initiative All About?

The letter calls for:

- An extension of debt cancellation
- A neutral platform for future decision making around debt
- The establishment of responsible standards of lending and borrowing
- Reducing the need for loans by stemming illicit resource flows and mobilizing grant assistance
- Transform International Financial Institutions to make them accountable to the people most affected by their decisions

Jubilee USA has been reaching out to high-level faith leaders from all over the country urging them to sign on to the letter.

You can learn more here.

It runs in the family

2011-12-27T11:18:00.002-05:00

Rex Smith, the editor of the Times Union, also is familiar with religion, since the clergy in his family include his paternal grandfather, maternal grandfather, father and brother. Cousins and uncles also became clergy. So when he talks about religion, he is not without some standing.

On Christmas, his column in the Sunday Times Union dealt with religion and politics, topics close to the hearts of those who read this blog.

Mr. Smith discusses his father’s view about the role that people of faith should play in the world, and he goes on to quote an influential African-American theologian, Howard Thurman, a student of Gandhi and a mentor of Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote:

"When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, then the true work of Christmas begins:

"To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among others, to make music in the heart."

We recommend the entire column, which is available here.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T11:26:00.000-05:00

This day we receive good news of great joy. The Jesuits at Loyola Press offer this three-minute retreat to appreciate the meaning of Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Support grows for independent redistricting

2011-12-21T08:34:00.001-05:00

A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows that support for independent redistricting among New York state voters has risen to 52 percent. Frankly, we are disappointed that it is not higher. From the news release:

An independent commission with no ties to the New York State Legislature should draw district lines from which legislators are elected, 52 percent of voters say in a Quinnipiac University poll released today. This is up slightly from 48 percent in an October 26 survey. Another 27 percent support a commission with some legislative input and 11 percent support the current system where state legislators create election districts.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo should veto any legislative districting plan that is not created by an independent commission, voters say 45 - 37 percent in the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh- pe-ack) University poll.

"Drawing new legislative and congressional district lines will be high on Albany's 2012 agenda. Quinnipiac University has been tracking this sleeper issue for some time and we see support for an independent commission to draw the lines is edging up," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "By a decisive 56 - 36 percent, New York State voters say keep legislators away from this so-called independent commission."

The rest of the release is here.

More on CST and the Occupy Movement

2011-12-20T21:22:00.002-05:00

Over at The Theology Salon, Fr. Thomas Massaro SJ, Professor of Moral Theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, reflects on Labor and Work in Catholic Social Teaching and the Occupy Movement:

Pope John Paul II began his 1981 encyclical letter Laborem Exercens(On Human Work) with the stunning claim that “work as a human issue is at the very center of the ‘social question.’” This pope who had held some interesting jobs himself during his lifetime (factory hand, actor, mineworker) reminded his readers that “the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man [sic] and society.

”In many ways, the agenda of the Occupy movement reflects this same set of concerns. As diffuse and disputed as its agenda may be, the Occupy movement has called unprecedented attention to the great imbalances in power and material outcome experienced by Americans today. One could quibble with the movement’s tactics and demands or even with its math (that overly simplistic motif of the 99% and the 1%), but you would have to possess a very large blind spot indeed not to notice the ambient social inequities surrounding us today.

At the very root of many of these disparities and inequities is human work. One need not subscribe to a crass Marxism to recognize that work arrangements do indeed determine the life prospects for just about all of us. The way that labor is divided, distributed and remunerated makes a huge difference in promoting or frustrating the attainment of social justice.

The rest of the reflection is here.

Watching the future church

2011-12-17T08:40:00.001-05:00

Local author Mary DeTurris Poust wrote about spending three days with 23,000 teenagers at the recent National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis. Her column in Catholic New York is headlined Watching the Future Church in Action:

Sitting on the 50-yard line of the packed stadium, I was overwhelmed by the willingness of these teens to open themselves up to a faith experience like none other. They prayed the Divine Office in song and dance, they sat it total silence during lectio divina, they stood on line by the hundreds at the nearby convention center to go to confession, they rushed to Victory Park to ask the 30 bishops in attendance to sign their bishop trading cards, and they went to adoration and diocesan Masses and one workshop after another.
. . .
At the closing Mass, after an awesome procession of almost 300 priests and deacons, 175 seminarians and eight bishops—a sight that left the kids wide-eyed with gratitude and excitement—the teens were told to take out their cell phones and text the words “called to glory” (the theme of the event) to all of their contacts, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. As screens glowed in the darkness and kids clicked “send,” there was a powerful sense of what’s to come for all of us, and I couldn’t help but smile and look forward with anticipation to what this group of Catholic teens will one day do to shape our Church and our world.

The surveys and headlines may tell us things look bleak, but, from where I was sitting amid a sea of teens in hats and T-shirts emblazoned with the words and signs of their faith, the view was bright and clear and brimming with hope.

The rest of the column is here.

A visit to Occupy Albany

2011-12-16T16:52:00.002-05:00

Deacon Walter Ayres writes in The Evangelist about a visit to the site of Occupy Albany by members of the Commission on Peace and Justice:

Authentic spirituality and good political activism share at least two characteristics: They affirm that which is good and reject that which is evil.

Toward that end, several members of the Albany diocesan Commission on Peace and Justice recently visited the Occupy Albany site across from the State Capitol and, as a result, had our picture appear in a local newspaper.

Not everyone was pleased.

The rest of the column is here.

Fox News and the so-called “War on Christmas”

2011-12-16T08:11:00.002-05:00

Jim Wallis blogs about Fox News and the so-called “War on Christmas” at www.godspolitics.com:

It is theologically and spiritually significant that the Incarnation came to our poorest streets. That Jesus was born poor, later announces his mission at Nazareth as “bringing good news to the poor,” and finally tells us that how we treat “the least of these” is his measure of how we treat him and how he will judge us as the Son of God, radically defines the social context and meaning of the Incarnation of God in Christ. And it clearly reveals the real meaning of Christmas.

The other explicit message of the Incarnation is that Jesus the Christ’s arrival will mean “peace on earth, good will toward men.” He is “the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.” Jesus later calls on his disciples to turn the other cheek, practice humility, walk the extra mile, put away their swords, love their neighbors — and even their enemies — and says that in his kingdom, it is the peacemakers who will be called the children of God. Christ will end our warring ways, bringing reconciliation to God and to one another.

None of that has anything to do with the Fox News Christmas. In fact, quite the opposite.

Making sure that shopping malls and stores greet their customers with “Merry Christmas” is entirely irrelevant to the meaning of the Incarnation. In reality it is the consumer frenzy of Christmas shopping that is the real affront and threat to the season.

Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet, would cost about $20 billion. Let’s just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season.
. . .
The real Christmas announces the birth of Jesus to a world of poverty, pain, and sin, and offers the hope of salvation and justice.

The Fox News Christmas heralds the steady promotion of consumerism, the defense of wealth and power, the adulation of money and markets, and the regular belittling or attacking of efforts to overcome poverty.

The real Christmas offers the joyful promise of peace and the hope of reconciliation with God and between humankind.
The Fox News Christmas proffers the constant drumbeat of war, the reliance on military solutions to every conflict, the demonizing of our enemies, and the gospel of American dominance.

The real Christmas lifts up the Virgin Mary’s song of praise for her baby boy: “He has brought the mighty down from their thrones, and lifted the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.”

The Fox News Christmas would label Mary’s Magnificat as “class warfare.”

The rest of his column is here.

Thanking immigrants, legal or not

2011-12-14T08:51:00.002-05:00

On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Hispanic/Latino Bishops of the United States released a letter to immigrants, signed by 33 bishops:

We the undersigned Hispanic/Latino Bishops of the United States wish to let those of you who lack proper authorization to live and work in our country know that you are not alone, or forgotten. We recognize that every human being, authorized or not, is an image of God and therefore possesses infinite value and dignity. We open our arms and hearts to you, and we receive you as members of our Catholic family. As pastors, we direct these words to you from the depths of our heart.

In a very special way we want to thank you for the Christian values you manifest to us with your lives—your sacrifice for the well-being of your families, your determination and perseverance, your joy of life, your profound faith and fidelity despite your insecurity and many difficulties. You contribute much to the welfare of our nation in the economic, cultural and spiritual arenas.
. . .
Immigrants are a revitalizing force for our country. The lack of a just, humane and effective reform of immigration laws negatively affects the common good of the entire United States.

It pains and saddens us that many of our Catholic brothers and sisters have not supported our petitions for changes in the immigration law that will protect your basic rights while you contribute your hard work to our country. We promise to keep working to bring about this change. We know how difficult the journey is to reach the border and to enter the United States. That is why we are committed to do all that we can to bring about a change in the immigration law, so that you can enter and remain here legally and not feel compelled to undertake a dangerous journey in order to support and provide for your families. As pastors concerned for your welfare, we ask you to consider seriously whether it is advisable to undertake the journey here until after just and humane changes occur in our immigration laws.

Nevertheless, we are not going to wait until the law changes to welcome you who are already here into our churches, for as St. Paul tells us, “You are no longer aliens or foreign visitors; you are fellow-citizens with the holy people of God and part of God’s household” (Eph 2:19).

As members of the Body of Christ which is the Church, we offer you spiritual nourishment. Feel welcome to Holy Mass, the Eucharist, which nourishes us with the word and the body and blood of Jesus. We offer you catechetical programs for your children and those religious education programs that our diocesan resources allow us to put at your disposal.

The rest of the letter is here. San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller told Reuters, "This letter is pastoral in nature and is not about politics or programs. It is my desire to offer comfort, kindness, and compassion to all immigrants who are suffering, especially at this time of year."

Bishops renew poverty awareness program

2011-12-12T20:46:00.001-05:00

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops today announced that it is renewing its povery awareness program, Poverty USA:

With 15 percent of all Americans, including nearly 1 in 4 children, living in poverty, the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development (JPHD) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is renewing its poverty awareness campaign, Poverty USA, complete with a revamped website and a new social media presence and Poverty Awareness Month event in January.

“Our culture of life begins with a love that binds us to the hopes and joys, the struggles and the sorrows of people, especially those who are poor or any way afflicted,” said Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California, chairman of the bishops’ domestic anti-poverty effort, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). “We march with immigrant families toward a society made stronger and safer by their inclusion. We embrace the mother and her unborn child, giving to both of them hope and opportunity. We measure our own health by the quality of care we give to those most vulnerable. We labor with those whose work is burdensome.”

The rest of the news release is here.

Government transparency (updated)

2011-12-09T12:18:00.004-05:00

The New York Times has joined several good government groups in taking Governor Andrew Cuomo to task for the way in which he pushed a new tax bill through the state Legislature this week. As the Times noted in its editorial:

New York’s legislators began arriving in Albany on Tuesday morning, and, by late Wednesday night, the Legislature had voted to revamp the entire state income tax code. The Senate voted less than half an hour after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 19,000 word bill was made public. As for the voters and taxpayers? They were out of the loop.

The governor’s plan, which drew only eight no votes from the entire Legislature, will raise about $2 billion next year, less than half as much money as the so-called millionaires’ tax that expires at the end of December. It also means that the state will still face a deficit of at least $1.5 billion next year.
. . .
At a press conference after the voting, Mr. Cuomo dismissed criticism by good-government groups for failing to allow full public debate. And, as for legislators, he said that if any had not been thinking about state tax policy, “then that is a person who shouldn’t be serving in the Legislature.”

That is not the point, of course. Everybody has thought about taxes. It is the specifics of tax law that matter, not the generalities.

The entire editorial is here. Also worth reading is Jimmy Vielkind’s article in today’s Times Union, about how pressure was brought on legislators to approve the measure. Here is a portion:

Assembly Republicans were huddled late Wednesday in the parlor where they hold their private conference. It was about 9:30 p.m., 30 minutes after a bill to restructure the tax code was finally printed.

Members were asking questions based on the legislation, which had been announced via news release Tuesday afternoon, when, according to four sources in the room, the phone rang.

It was Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

He asked Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, to hurry up, the sources said. The leader said his members were reviewing the bill, and to back off. Kolb had said he was going to vote against the measure earlier in the day, but as the governor phoned, the 32 Republicans in the Senate were leading the way to its unanimous approval in that chamber.

Cuomo then told Kolb he wanted a unanimous vote, and threatened to campaign in the district of any member who voted against the package, Kolb repeated to the room, according to the sources.

The Governor's office has not denied the electoral threat.

[UPDATE: Governor Cuomo says the story is “inaccurate,” but others disagree.]

Prior to the vote, Bill Hammond at the Daily News had written about the effort to bring the legislators back and push through an overhaul of the state tax code:

That is absurd. Overhauling the state’s entire tax code, with billions of dollars at stake, is not something to be squeezed in between shopping trips to the mall. It’s serious business that demands serious, thoughtful consideration and debate.

New York’s Constitution provides a step-by-step procedure for making large-scale decisions about revenue and spending. It’s called the budget process. Cuomo should use it.

Apparently very few in state government were listening.

Is capitalism at odds with Christian values?

2011-12-08T08:32:00.002-05:00

A survey conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service found that, overall, more Americans believe that Christian values are at odds with capitalism and the free market than believe they are compatible.

Among Christians in the U.S., only 38% believe capitalism and the free market are consistent with Christian values while 46% believe the two are at odds. Religiously unaffiliated Americans look similar to the general population and to Christian Americans, with a plurality (40%) saying capitalism is at odds with Christian values, compared to 32% who say they are compatible; 14% say they do not know.

Other findings:

More than 6-in-10 (62%) Americans believe that one of the biggest problems in this country is that more and more wealth is held by just a few people. About 1-in-4 (24%) say that this is not that big a problem.
. . .
Nearly two-thirds (66%) say that it’s fair for wealthier Americans to pay more taxes than the middle class or those less well off.
. . .
Overall most (61%) Americans disagree that most businesses would act ethically on their own without regulation from the government. Less than 4-in-10 (37%) believe that they would. This holds true across political and religious lines, with the lone exception of those who identify with the Tea Party movement (53% agree).

You can read more here.

NY's tax and poverty rates a'changing

2011-12-06T15:49:00.002-05:00

As New Yorkers wait for legislative action on a possible change to the State’s tax code, which might generate in the neighborhood of $2 billion, America magazine is reporting on alarming trends in poverty across the United States. Citing data from Catholic News Service, its own staff and other sources, the magazine is reporting the following:

The impact of increasing poverty and the diminished economic resources of the U.S. middle class became evident in late November. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that poverty among school-age children showed “a statistically significant increase” in one in five counties across the nation, and an analysis by The New York Times of Department of Agriculture data concluded that the number of students receiving subsidized school lunches rose to 21 million in the 2009-10 school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase. According to the analysis, 11 states had four-year increases of 25 percent or more, “huge shifts in a vast program long characterized by incremental growth.”

Reports from Catholic Charities USA agencies across the nation were just as discouraging. According to the organization’s 2011 Third Quarter Snapshot Survey, 66 percent of Catholic Charities agencies saw an increase in requests for assistance from families with children and 59 percent reported increases in aid requests from middle-class families. Eighty percent report increased requests for assistance from the working poor.

Perhaps most alarming were the snapshot’s findings related to the toll the rising demand was having on C.C.U.S.A. capacity. More than 88 percent of local agencies reported that they maintained a waiting list or had to turn people away for at least one of their programs or services in the last quarter, and 64 percent reported that they could not meet the need they faced for emergency financial assistance. Fifty-six percent of Catholic Charities agencies were unable to respond to some requests for utility assistance.

Commenting on the report, the Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said that while the need for food and utility assistance has been consistent, never in his experience had so many agencies been forced to turn clients away or place families on waiting lists. “Many never had to do this in the past,” he said. “This is really very difficult emotionally for our staff, to have to do that.”

The rest of the article is here. Also of interest is this blog post by Jimmy Vielkind of the Times Union, who has put together spreadsheet showing the income tax brackets and marginal rates.

On Civility in Political Communication

2011-12-06T11:28:00.003-05:00

Albert Merz, OFM, has written a short paper for the Franciscan Action Network entitled On Civility in Political Communication. Here is an excerpt:

One of the consequences of incivility in how we talk “to” or “at” each other is alienation. People are pushed apart rather than pulled together. The roots of solutions to society’s problems have to be found in common ground. It is almost impossible to find this common ground in a non-relational environment.

The more threatening consequence of incivility in how we talk “to” or “at” each other is that it can become a “seed of violence.” Our minds and our emotions feed on words. Both the speaker and the hearer are affected by them. There is an old saying: “We become what we eat.” In an applied sense we might say: “We become what we speak.” The very words we speak change us. We can calm ourselves and we can ignite ourselves by the words and tone we use. Likewise we can affect the ones to whom we are speaking.

. . .

Recently I read that the public school system in the United States grew out of a concern on the part of our political leaders that people were losing a sense of the common good, i.e., they were becoming uncivil. Therefore, the need for education in civics in the original meaning of the word was deemed necessary. Civility, then, really means more than just being polite. It means genuinely respecting and caring for one another.

It seems to me that we need to revive such courses in civics, but this time in adult education programs. I would visualize the course syllabus to include the following topics:

1) How perspectives are formed – thus we could respect how others obtained their points of view;

2) The value of open-mindedness to a diverse pool of ideas – thus we might spawn a greater idea;

3) The necessity of serving the common good – thus we would realize the need for some individual sacrificing;

4) The importance of building trust in the community – thus we would be able to function together;

5) The significance of respect and civility in communication – thus we could maintain a positive atmosphere for creative progress.

We suggest that you read the entire statement here.

Bishop Hubbard addresses global poverty

2011-12-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard has recorded two public service announcements for radio, addressing the need to protect lifesaving foreign assistance in the federal budget. You can listen to them here, under the heading “What’s New”. And you can learn more, here.

A labor strategist's tools

2011-12-04T21:11:00.002-05:00

Clayton Sinyai, director of strategic campaigns for the Amalgamated Transit Union and a member of the Catholic Labor Network, writes about faith, Scripture Catholic social teaching in America magazine:

I draw a great deal of strength and direction from the study of Scripture and the social encyclicals of the popes. Reading Scripture teaches me humility. Every time I pick up the Bible I find myself baffled by something or other about our mysterious God. Scripture reminds me how little I understand of the highest things, how high God’s thoughts are above my thoughts.

The social encyclicals complement my study of the words of Scripture almost perfectly, offering desperately needed counsel in great clarity. Think of it: Who among the laity enjoys so much guidance in their vocation as I? I searched in vain for passages in the papal letters that might tell one how to be a worthwhile machine operator or railroad clerk or letter carrier. But Leo, Pius, John Paul and Benedict are full of advice on how to be a good trade unionist.

The rest of the article is here.

On visiting Occupy Albany

2011-12-03T11:59:00.001-05:00

Barbara DiTommaso, executive director of the Commission on Peace and Justice, wrote an article for the religion page of today’s Times Union. In it, she discusses a recent visit with other religious leaders to the site of Occupy Albany and raises some interesting questions:

Pop quiz: In the Jewish and Christian scriptures, how many references are there to the rights of those who are poor and vulnerable? How many mentions are there of the rights of the rich? If you answered "over 190" to the first question, you're correct. If you replied "zero"to the second, you're right again.

This clear orientation was in evidence on Nov. 4 as Capital Region religious leaders and their representatives led prayers and reflections relating to Occupy Albany, and the larger Occupy movement across the country, to our religious beliefs.

In a cold wind that drove home the personal sacrifices made by those who were staying during the day and night in Academy Park, we were warmed by the familiar phrases that had moved me to choose social ministry as my life's focus.

The orphan, the widow and the stranger — or, as we would say today, the immigrant — of special concern to God because they cannot fend for themselves, and so their counterparts in today's world must be of special concern to us of Judeo-Christian heritage. Those who are marginalized in society aren't to be merely the objects of our concern. We care about them because we identify with them and their suffering. Many in the Occupy movement understand this.

The rest of the column is here.

Remembering the martyrs of El Salvador

2011-12-02T10:05:00.002-05:00

On December 2, 1980, Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, lay missioner Jean Donovan, and Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel were murdered by a death squad for their work helping the poor of El Salvador and for their human rights advocacy, which were considered subversive activities during a brutal civil war that claimed an estimated 75,000 lives.

Today, on the 31st anniversary of their deaths, we ask you to recall their stories and stories of all the Central American martyrs, including Father Rutilio Grande and Archbishop Oscar Romero and the thousands of anonymous people who suffered persecution, torture, and death in Central America in the 1980s.

You can learn more here, here, here and here.

May thoughts of their continued impact bring peace and inspiration to you today and through your Advent journey.

“The great problem in Nicaragua as in all Latin America is the problem of terrible injustice - the small number of very rich and the great percentage of miserably poor.”

“I see in this work a channel for awakening real concern for the victims of injustice in today’s world; a means to work for change, and to share deep concern for the sufferings of the poor and marginated, the non-persons of our human family”
Maura Clarke, M.M., killed December 2nd, 1980.

+ + + + + + +

"No hay amor cristiano sin lucha de justicia"
[There is no Christian love without a fight for justice]
Ignacio Ellacuria S.J., killed Nov. 16th 1989

+ + + + + + +

“The reasons why so many people are being killed are quite complicated, yet . . . many people have found a meaning to life, to sacrifice, to struggle and even to death! And whether their life spans 16 years or 60 or 90, for them their life has had a purpose. In many ways, they are fortunate people. . . . I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you.

Something worth living for, maybe even worth dying for, something that energizes you, enthuses you to keep moving ahead. I can't tell you what it might be. That's for you to find, to choose, to love. I just encourage you to start looking and support you in the search.”
Ita Ford, M.M., killed December 2nd, 1980, in a letter to her 16-year-old niece.

USCCB On-line Advent Calendar

2011-12-01T22:36:00.000-05:00

The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has an on-line Advent calendar here with activities for each day, such as praying for those with HIV/AIDS, observe Human rights Day, pray a Scriptural Rosary for justice and peace, and learn about the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching.

SSM lawsuit may reveal government maneuvering

2011-12-01T11:52:00.003-05:00

Regardless of how one feels about the law that allows same-sex marriage in New York, one has to be intrigued by the door it may open into the inner workings of New York State government.

This week, a State Supreme Court justice ruled that there is an issue with how that decision was achieved, perhaps in violation of the State’s Open Meetings Law. Acting State Supreme Court Judge Robert Wiggins also questioned the need for a "message of necessity" issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The lawsuit challenging the law claims that Governor Cuomo improperly sent the message of necessity to the Senate for an immediate vote on the bill; without such a message, the bill normally would have had to be submitted to lawmakers three days in advance. The message said the continued delay in passing it would deny 50,000 same-sex couples critical protections currently offered others.

"Logically and clearly this cite by the governor is disingenuous," Wiggins wrote, shortening the required three days of consideration to change a law that had been in effect for generations. Nevertheless, Justice Wiggins said the Senate voted to accept the message, and it was not within his province to nullify it.

The Times Union, which supported the bill in earlier editorials, also supports Justice Wiggins in today’s editorial:

It took a state Supreme Court justice’s ruling in what smacks of a futile lawsuit to remind us of that magnificent night six months ago when New York legalized gay marriage.

You could feel the drama at the state Capitol. Passion was in the air. History was being made. Justice was being served.

And through it all, then as well as now, it’s fair to ask, what’s the rush? Why was Governor Cuomo insisting on a vote by the Senate that night, June 24, on a bill that had just been submitted? Why not the usual process of what’s known as letting bills age for three days?

Those nagging questions are at the core of acting Justice Robert Wiggins’ ruling that a lawsuit in opposition to the same-sex marriage law and how it was passed can proceed.
. . .

Here’s Justice Wiggins, citing the state’s Public Officers Law:

“The people must be able to remain informed if they are to retain control over those who are their public servants. It is the only climate under which the commonwealth will prosper and enable the government process to operate for those who created it.”

There is more here, here and here.

Troy poverty rate up 63 percent

2011-11-30T16:36:00.001-05:00

Kenneth C. Crowe II, staff writer at the Albany Times Union, writes about the latest census data about poverty in the City of Troy and the rest of the Capital District:

The estimated number of Troy City School District children living in poverty jumped 63 percent — the greatest among the Capital Region's large urban districts — between 2007 and 2010 as the recession gripped the economy, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

At a time when schools face dwindling financial resources and pressures to hold down property taxes, districts are struggling to serve their neediest students.

"Obviously, we have to address the needs of the children. The way out of poverty is through education. We know we have to work harder to accomplish more,' said Troy Superintendent Brian F. Howard.

Double-digit poverty increases are typical for most local school districts as jobs have disappeared since 2007.

The rest of the article is here.

Another perspective on redistricting

2011-11-29T21:09:00.003-05:00

Bill Hammond at the Daily News has an excellent column today on how Albany politicians have rigged districts to serve their own ends. It is an issue we have addressed many times in the past, including here, here and here. We will continue to discuss redistricting in the future. In the meantime, read this:

A new report from Citizens Union should throw a scare into all New Yorkers who still believe in democratic government.

The 114-year-old watchdog group has crunched the numbers and confirmed what your gut was already telling you: The disconnect between Albany lawmakers and the people they supposedly represent has gone from bad to much, much worse.

Because the powers that be have so thoroughly rigged the game for their own advantage, most members of the Legislature routinely return to office every other year after elections that have been reduced to Soviet-style jokes.

Nine out of 10 cruise by comfortable margins of 10 points or more. Almost a third are complete shoo-ins, facing either no major-party contender or no opponent at all.

And the races have gotten dramatically less competitive in recent decades, with the average margin of victory soaring from a ridiculous 33 percentage points to a laughable 51 points last year.

In 1968, just 1% of legislative races were uncontested. Last year, that number had skyrocketed to 19%.

Little wonder that the reelection rate for incumbents was 96% over the last decade — and 100% in 2006.

And little wonder that New York’s election turnout has dropped below 35%, the fourth lowest in the country. Voters know a con when they smell one.

The report traces these sickening trends to the heart of Albany’s incumbency-protection racket: the brazenly partisan gerrymandering of legislative districts.

The full column is here.

Today's political parties and the Donatists

2011-11-29T12:39:00.002-05:00

Conservative columnist David Brooks was recently interviewed by Gail Collins of The New York Times. The subject was religion, although it strayed into politics. Mr. Brooks compares today’s Democrats and Republicans with the Donatists:

Did you know that even though they lived roughly 1,700 years ago, the Donatists were just like our two parties today. They were more interested in following their accepted doctrine than in looking at reality. Augustine smoked them in debate.

We hope that strikes you as interesting, and that it leads you to the rest of the interview, here.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:17:00.001-05:00

Prayer of the day from the Sisters of St. Joseph:

A Thanksgiving Prayer

May there be spring enough
in your life to outlast the winter.
May there be music enough
to lift your spirits
whenever you need it.
May you be gentle enough
to comfort those who are hurting
but revolutionary enough
to bring heaven to those who need it now.
May there always be a friend near you
to bring out laughter and dance
and the child in you.
And may there always be room enough
for you in the palm of God's hand.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Updated "Work of Human Hands" Sales Schedule

2011-11-23T18:28:00.000-05:00

The Commission on Peace and Justice is 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, and no child exploitation.

Here is the schedule for the rest of the year:

Dec. 3-4
St. John the Baptist, Valatie
All Saints, Albany

Dec. 7-8
Pastoral Center, Albany

Dec. 10-11
St. Vincent’s, Albany
Mater Christi, Albany
Our Lady, Queen of Peace, Rotterdam
Sacred Heart, Castleton

New York State Redistricting Process Draws Lawsuit

2011-11-21T10:17:00.003-05:00

Thomas Kaplan at The New York Times is reporting that "a group of community leaders has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to take control of the contentious redistricting process."

The lawsuit, which names Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders as defendants, asserts that the officials’ effort to redraw Assembly, Senate and Congressional district boundaries to reflect the most recent census “has stalled and threatens to throw the state’s 2012 elections into a quagmire absent court intervention.”

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, follows similar legal challenges in more than a dozen states that are also in the midst of the often-bitter process of redrawing districts. In New York, it is the first major face-off in what seems likely to devolve into a chaotic legal battle, as well as a major fight in the legislative session that will begin in January.

A task force is working on drawing a set of political maps for consideration by the Legislature. But Mr. Cuomo has said he would veto those maps, because the panel is not independent. He has called on the Legislature to approve his plan for an independent commission; it has declined.

Redistricting continues to be an important issue, and we urge everyone to contact their legislators and ask for a process that does more than protect incumbents. The rest of the article is here.

Ike and the military -industrial complex

2011-11-20T10:20:00.002-05:00

National Public Radio has an interesting piece regarding President Dwight Eisenhower and the military-industrial complex, a term he used on Jan. 17, 1961, when he gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called the military-industrial complex a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces.

Recall that Eisenhower was a retired five-star Army general, the man who led the allies on D-Day. He made the remarks in his farewell speech from the White House.

Here's an excerpt:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

Speaking at the Eisenhower Library last year, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — who kept a portrait of the former general in his office at the Pentagon – talked about America's insatiable appetite for more and more weapons:

"Does the number of warships we have, and are building, really put America at risk, when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined — 11 of which are our partners and allies?

Is it a dire threat that by 2020, the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?

These are the kinds of questions Eisenhower asked as commander-in-chief. They are the kinds of questions I believe he would ask today."

There is more to learn, here.

Themes Of Catholic Social Teaching

2011-11-18T11:19:00.001-05:00

The bishops of the United States tell us that the Church's social teaching is “a rich treasure of wisdom about building a just society and living lives of holiness amidst the challenges of modern society.” This social teaching has been articulated through a tradition of papal, conciliar, and episcopal documents, which most Catholics never have read.

While the depth and richness of this Catholic tradition can be understood best by actually reading these documents, the bishops have highlighted seven key themes at the heart of our Catholic social tradition.

Can you name one?

The list is here.

Are you brave enough to be a nun?

2011-11-17T20:59:00.003-05:00

Two recent news articles highlight the dangers that nuns face around the world. The first article reports on a nun fighting for human rights amid the drug war in Mexico:

Even in a career full of threats and harassment, the day someone deposited four cats at her office door, all with their throats slit, stands out for Consuelo Morales.

"They were telling us to be quiet or we'd be next," she says.

That was 14 years ago, and she is still anything but quiet.

The 63-year-old Roman Catholic nun is one of Mexico's most indefatigable and effective defenders of human rights. As the country staggers into a sixth year of drug war violence, Sister Consuelo (as her colleagues call her) has more work than ever.

Mothers whose sons were last seen being hauled away by police seek her counsel. She leads marches and confronts state governors, prosecutors, detectives. She escorts victims past soldiers posted at government buildings and helps them file the kinds of complaints the authorities would rather not see: about the disappeared, the slain, the tortured, allegedly at the hands of police and soldiers.

The second article dealt with the murder of a nun in India:

Church leaders in Kerala have expressed shock and outrage over the killing yesterday of tribal rights campaigner Sister Valsa John.

The 53-year-old nun from the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary was hacked to death at her home in the remote Pakur district of the east Indian state of Jharkhand.
. . .
Sr. John’s brother, M. J. Baby said he had warned her not to return to Jharkhand when she came home for a holiday at the end of August.

“I told her not to go back after she told me about threats she had received,” he said.

The family believe the nun was killed by people connected to a mining company she was campaigning against.

Offering his praise to the dead nun, Kerala regional Latin Catholic Council president, Archbishop Maria Calist Soosapakiam said: “With her exemplary life and courage to fight evil, Sr John has shown us that we need to rededicate our lives for our faith and work for the poor.”

We recommend that you read them both, and pray for both of these brave women.

Examination Of Conscience In Light Of Catholic Social Teaching

2011-11-14T14:57:00.001-05:00

To help us understand how our activities affect others, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has an Examination Of Conscience In Light Of Catholic Social Teaching. Some of the questions to consider:

Do I try to make positive contributions in my family and in my community?

Am I aware of problems facing my local community and involved in efforts to find solutions? Do I stay informed and make my voice heard when needed?

Do I support the efforts of poor persons to work for change in their neighborhoods and communities? Do my attitudes and interactions empower or disempower others?

Do I urge those in power to implement programs and policies that give priority to the human dignity and rights of all, especially the vulnerable?

Am I disproportionately concerned for my own good at the expense of others?

Do I engage in service and advocacy work that protects the dignity of poor and vulnerable persons?

The entire list is much longer, but well worth the read.

Join us at Occupy Albany

2011-11-13T12:44:00.001-05:00

Good spirituality and good political activism have one thing in common; they should both resist evil and support that which is good. Members of the Diocesan Commission on Peace and Justice will do just that on Monday, November 14, when we go to the Occupy Albany site north of the State Capitol. We invite you to join us, from 8-9 a.m. and from 4-5 p.m.

We will be the ones with the banner that reads, Commission on Peace and Justice.

Clever, yes?

Blessed Are the Merciful

2011-11-11T12:26:00.003-05:00

Rais Bhuiyan, a Muslim shot by a white supremacist in the wake of 9/11, describes how his faith led him to forgive his attacker, and the fight to block his execution, here. The white supremacist, Mark Stroman, later wrote on his blog:

"There is a man out there that has every right to hate me for what I did after the 9/11/01 events that rocked our world. This man, Rais, has come to the forefront in an effort to show the world how forgiveness and compassion overrule the human nature of hate. I’m envious of his actions and his kindness speaks volumes. He is an example that the human race should follow. Rais, I’m deeply touched by all you have said and that’s from my heart and soul."

To learn how the story ends, go here.

Bishop cites importance of environmental stewardship

2011-11-10T08:50:00.001-05:00

Catholic News Service reports that Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, spoke to interfaith leaders at the Festival of Faiths conference in Louisville, Kentucky, where he said that people praise, honor and serve God “when we care for all living beings by protecting the air, which is God’s gift to us,” in a November 7 address. The theme of his address was “Sacred Air: Breath of Life.”

“As stewards of God’s creation we can live more simply, using the earth’s resources wisely, reducing our consumption, working to eliminate air pollution and reducing our carbon footprint,” said Bishop Blaire. “In the end it just makes good sense to want to have clean air for our children and families to breathe and for future generations.”

In his address, Bishop Blaire highlighted the specific threat of mercury and other toxic air pollution to children’s health.

The entire address is here.

Reducing wrongful convictions

2011-11-09T21:13:00.001-05:00

Kevin Doyle, a lawyer who has defended capital cases in Alabama and New York, reviewed two important books for America magazine; one dealt with the convictions of innocent people, while the other was about the death penalty in America. The entire review is here, but we bring to your attention some recommendations to reduce the number of people wrongly convicted. The review explains why these are necessary.

• Police identification procedures should conform to written protocols, and each procedure should be documented contemporaneously. Ideally, officers unfamiliar with the specific investigation should conduct the procedures to prevent influencing witnesses with even unintended clues and cues. Judges should emphatically instruct jurors not to evaluate an identifying witness solely by the person’s certainty and not to imagine that the memory works like a camera.

• Forensic labs should stand independent of law enforcement and submit to external oversight in the form of periodic blind audits. “All examiners should be blind-tested for proficiency. The defense should have access to underlying bench notes and laboratory reports, and to their own defense experts.” Courts should stand guard against junk science.

• Before allowing a jailhouse informant to testify, a trial court should render a threshold judgment of minimal reliability. All police or prosecutor conversations with informants should be recorded; this will ensure full disclosure of deals struck and deter informants’ ascribing to defendants details learned from the police.

• Interrogations should be recorded, as 11 states and the District of Columbia currently require or encourage. Trial courts should scrutinize resultant recordings for hints of coercion or of the police’s feeding a suspect crime details the suspect then weaves into his confession. Minors and the mentally compromised should enjoy special safeguards.

Rhetoric versus reality

2011-11-09T15:18:00.001-05:00

CNN is reporting that the candidates for President, from both parties, need to go back to Economics 101.

Every 2012 contender attended college. They all graduated. They went to schools like the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Texas A&M, Morehouse, Penn State and Emory.

But decades have passed since these Presidential candidates first stepped onto campus as freshmen. Is it time for an Econ 101 refresher course?

America's Econ 101 professors say yes. In their view, the candidates continue to offer ideas and policies that wouldn't pass muster in their classes -- populated by 18 year-old college students.

"There are so many economic 'misstatements' being made," said Jonathan Lanning, a professor at Bryn Mawr who is teaching two introductory economics classes this semester. "And it isn't confined to any one candidate."

Rhetoric is important to any political candidate, but it should never trump reality. The entire article is here.

Election Day

2011-11-08T07:50:00.000-05:00

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and vote!

Archbishop Dolan calls for strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations

2011-11-06T11:53:00.001-05:00

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan last week addressed more than 250 Jewish leaders at the annual meeting of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights anti-Semitism. According to Catholic News Service, he told them that Catholics and Jews should “promote religious freedom, defend immigrants, face a common threat from fanatics and advocate for civility in politics and society.”

Both Jews and Catholics are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants, many of whom came to the United States to escape religious persecution. When they arrived, they carried little more than "the pearl of great price: their religion," he said.

Archbishop Dolan said both groups have been on the receiving end of religious bigotry and could stand together as advocates for the return of civility to politics and religion.

The entire article is available here.

Where have all the voters gone?

2011-11-05T11:43:00.001-04:00

There is an excellent editorial in the most recent issue of The Spotlight, which has weekly editions in Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga counties. The editorial notes that voter turnout in the Capital District is roughly 30 per cent, not too far from the average number of Catholics who attend weekly liturgies. We do not claim that there is any connection, but we believe that both numbers should be raised – significantly. As we have written previously, that is one of the goals of this blog, to get people more involved in their parishes and in their communities.

The Spotlight editorial notes:

It’s certainly no secret Americans are not voting as much as they used to. Whether that has to do with quality of politicians, our go-go lifestyle or too much television, we can’t honestly say, but we can say this is particularly bad in local election years like this one.

To use a handy example, in 2009 something like 60,000 people across Albany County headed to the polls to select their local leaders. That sounds pretty good until you consider the fact there were nearly 200,000 registered voters in the county at that time, for a voter turnout of around 30 percent.

(Oh, and by the way, right now there are about 60,000 county residents of voting age who evidently haven’t even bothered to register to vote. The numbers are similarly poor in other parts of the area.)
. . .
At the end of the day what your local government is doing may very well have a bigger impact on your day-to-day life. Local governments pave and plow roads, maintain sewer lines and police our communities. They also levy taxes, so on Election Day the people who vote are literally controlling who is behind part of that dreaded property tax bill.

That’s really the crux of this whole diatribe. Your vote keeps politicians honest and working for you (and they are often very well compensated, we should add), and it’s simply stunning so few people are willing to take five minutes to exercise that control.

The editorial concludes:

If you’re one of the unregistered residents of this county, it’s too late for this go around, but registering is easy. Simply visit online or call your board of elections and you can get them whole thing done by mail.

To those who are signed up: Go out there and be heard.

We could not agree more. Read the entire editorial here.

Redistricting: the musical

2011-11-03T19:21:00.001-04:00

The good folks at ProPublica have made a music video to address the complicated issue of redistricting. Thanks to Gannett’s Jon Campbell for posting it here. You are going to love this.

Work of Human Hands Sales Schedule

2011-11-02T19:18:00.002-04:00

Commitment to fair pay for labor, equal opportunity for women, concern for the environment, respect for cultural identity, reasonable working conditions, and no child exploitation.

Here is the schedule for the rest of the year:

Nov. 5-6
Our Lady of Fatima, Niskayuna
St. Henry’s, Averill Park
St. John’s Lutheran, Albany

Nov. 12-13
St. Clement’s, Saratoga Springs
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Albany
Immaculate Conception, Glenville

Nov. 15-16
Campus Center, University at Albany

Nov. 19-20
Our Lady of Grace, Ballston Lake
St. Matthew’s, Voorheesville
St. Patrick’s, Ravena

Dec. 3-4
St. John the Baptist, Valatie
All Saints, Albany

Dec. 7-8
Pastoral Center, Albany

Dec. 10-11
St. Vincent’s, Albany
Mater Christi, Albany
Our Lady, Queen of Peace, Rotterdam
Sacred Heart, Castleton

Bishop DiMarzio on capital punishment

2011-11-02T19:07:00.001-04:00

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn addresses the issue of the death penalty in the most recent issue of The Tablet, the diocesan newspaper. He writes:

The death penalty and its use will become in our own state an issue about which we must be educated. The Church has always taught that the right of self defense is both an individual right and a societal right. Society has a right to defend itself against aggressors, both externally by means of war as a last resort, and internally by those who are murders, serial killers, terrorists and those guilty of treason. The question for us as Catholics is not whether the death penalty is morally acceptable, but rather whether it should be imposed today.

. . .

The Church always must opt for the conversion of sinners, and prisons, once named penitentiaries, are places where people can do penance and change their lives. There is no better example of this than the case of the murderer of St. Maria Goretti, a teenage girl who resisted rape and was murdered by Alessandro Serenelli.Imprisoned for 30 years, he was truly converted during that time. He became a lay brother with the Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins, and attended the canonization of St. Maria Goretti. There are other extraordinary cases of conversion. If the Church must be consistent regarding the value of life from the very conception to a natural death, the use of the death penalty is something that the Church should be against in our own day and age.

. . .

Whenever the Church enters into the public policy field with moral teaching, she puts out into the deep and risks misunderstanding and even alienation from some Catholics. Our consistent teaching about life brings us to the firm conclusion that all life should be defended and that the use of the death penalty in our own day and age is not necessary.

The rest of this important column is here.

First Fridays for Food Security

2011-11-01T18:41:00.003-04:00

What is First Fridays for Food Security? It is a Facebook event launched by the United States Conference of catholic Bishops. On every first Friday for a year, eat meals that cost only as much as is allotted for a family of your size by the USDA Modified Thrifty Food Plan. (You will need to divide the weekly cost by seven.) This plan is used as the basis for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called food stamps). Many individuals or families may notice a disparity between the cost of their normal meals and the amount allotted in the food plan. The “cutting back” that will likely be required in order to stay “in budget” can be considered a form of fasting. This month the focus is on Transforming Food “Deserts” into Sources of Health and Nutrition.

Transforming Food “Deserts” into Sources of Health and Nutrition
In many parts of the United States the visible abundance of food can be overwhelming. Often the subject of conversation, food options and advertisements flash before us countless times each day. Thus, most Americans have come to expect a large supply and wide variety of food at sporting events, theaters, parent-teacher meetings, and at virtually all social gatherings. It’s no wonder then that the well-fed majority is largely unaware of food “deserts” that exist in many poor neighborhoods in our country where fresh, healthy food simply is not available.

Take the south side of Syracuse NY, for example, where residents mostly purchase their groceries from corner stores, not supermarkets or farmers’ markets. For years community members complained about the lack of any grocery store within a five mile radius of their neighborhood. This situation forces many low-income residents to take on an added expense to catch a cab or beg a ride outside their neighborhood. Furthermore, community gardens are not a remedy in this northern city which has only a three-month growing season.

You can learn more here. Also, here is the Facebook link.

Do-it-yourself redistricting

2011-10-31T14:49:00.002-04:00

Costas Panagopoulos, an associate professor of political science and director of the 2012 New York Redistricting Project at Fordham University, will be in Albany tomorrow (Tuesday, Nov. 1) to host a panel discussion and demonstration of software for redistricting from 2 to 4 p.m. in Hearing Room A of the Legislative Office Building in Albany. The easy-to-use software will be used in a student competition to design fair and equitable redistricting maps. The event is free and open to the public.

As he notes today in an o-ed piece in today’s Times Union:

Legislative redistricting has long been marred by backroom deal-making and a lack of public input. By restricting public access, politicians have been able to gerrymander districts to benefit themselves and their party.

Every 10 years, district lines are redrawn to reflect population and demographic changes. In theory, this guarantees that all citizens are fairly and equally represented through their elected officials. However, partisan gerrymandering often slices communities apart and creates districts that fail to ensure effective minority representation. Invariably, this dynamic contributes to partisan gridlock that paralyzes the political and policy making process.

As the state Legislature is in the midst of drawing its own lines, there is real concern about how the new maps will be produced. In past redistricting, both parties have joined to institutionalize partisan control of the Assembly and the Senate by creating fewer competitive races. Partisan control of the redistricting process has resulted in badly contorted districts that neglect communities and preclude competitive elections.

For all kinds of communities to be fairly represented in government, redistricting must be accountable to the communities being represented. The process must be transparent, accountable and open to public engagement.

Now, with the availability of user-friendly, free software, every citizen can have the tools to produce legislative maps. "The 2012 New York Redistricting Project", a collaborative effort between the Fordham Center of Electoral Politics and Democracy and the Public Mapping Project, seeks to promote these mapping tools, by training the public to use them effectively and become involved in redistricting.

We urge you to show up for the presentation on Tuesday, but, in the meantime, you can read more of his op-ed here.

A history of Catholics helping the poor?

2011-10-26T19:56:00.002-04:00

Thomas J. Craughwell has an interesting look at Catholic history in Our Sunday Visitor, in an article headlined, “Church history is essential Catholic reading: Learning the narrative of the Church’s triumphs and shortcomings helps us gain perspective on the Faith.”

In light of our earlier post about the number of Catholics who believe that they can be good Catholics without donating time or money to help the poor, we were struck by this:

In the first centuries of the Church, one of the sharpest differences between Christians and their pagan neighbors was the Christian concept of care and compassion for the poor. The Acts of the Apostles tell us that the first seven deacons were ordained, among other things, to care for impoverished widows (Acts 6: 1-6). By the year 100, Christians routinely fasted, sometimes two or three days a week, donating the food they had not eaten to feed the destitute in their city. Such sacrificial compassion was incomprehensible to pagan Romans, who agreed with the philosopher Plautus that feeding a beggar was wasteful: “You lose what you give and prolong his life for misery,” Plautus wrote.

After 313, the year Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity throughout the empire, Christians were able to expand their charitable activity. They opened hospitals, orphanages, shelters for the elderly and the disabled — all institutions unknown in the pagan world.

This week’s statistics on Catholic giving seem to be a big step backwards.

Are churches becoming more religious and less spiritual?

2011-10-26T12:07:00.001-04:00

Peter Smith, a reporter who covers religion for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, writes about that possibility here. An excerpt regarding a survey of more than 10,000 congregations shows that many, particularly "Oldline Protestant" churches, are tanking:

Many of these same churches, according to the Faith Communities Today survey, are also putting less emphasis on spiritual activities, such as prayer and Bible study.

Veteran religion writer David Briggs poses what could be called the "duh" question: Could there be a connection?

It isn’t hard, he writes, to connect the dots. Most people go to church because — surprise — of their own personal piety. The more spiritually connected people feel, the more active they tend to be in church, and vice versa, the research shows.

Briggs, blogging for the Association of Religion Data Archives, said that if churches are struggling, perhaps that’s because they’re becoming precisely the opposite of what many people are defining themselves as: religious, but not spiritual:

It’s challenging, he acknowledges, for churches to try to pump up their spiritual vitality when membership is down, money is down and everyone is stretched and stressed:

"The loss of morale creates an environment where many say: ‘It doesn’t feel as if God is in this place,’ said David Roozen, a lead researcher of the Faith Communities Today survey.

"But part of the issue is also the choices many church leaders have made to place greater emphasis on social service programs or church committee work than on promoting spiritual growth.

We will be the first to admit there is a lesson here.

Catholic social teaching and Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-26T08:06:00.004-04:00

Does Catholic social teaching support Occupy Wall Street? Columnist Tony Magliano says "yes" in this column distributed by Catholic News Service:

The Catholic social teaching principle known as “the universal destination of the earth’s goods” insists that all people deserve a fair share of creation and the goods of humankind, and certainly to the point of having each basic need met entirely.

Pope Paul VI taught that God intends for everyone to adequately share in the goods of the earth.

American society’s failure to fulfill this ethical principle is a moral indictment against most of Washington’s politicians, corporate America and liberal capitalism, which highly favors those with wealth and power at the painful expense of those with little or none.

Blessed John Paul said that the human inadequacies of capitalism are far from disappearing. So much of America’s political and economic system is unjust. And yet, for the most part, Catholics are silent.

Silence supports the rich and powerful, never the poor and weak.

But Catholic social teaching calls us to speak up for the poor and weak.

So let us raise our voices together with our courageous brothers and sisters of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Demand that the do-little U.S. Congress:

– Significantly raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.
– Drastically cut military spending; stop the wars.
– Create millions of public service jobs.
– Give small businesses (especially green energy companies) job-producing financial assistance.
– Extend the efficiency of Medicare to everyone.
– Pass strong anti-sweatshop legislation.
– Greatly increase poverty-focused assistance to the nation’s and world’s poor!

The entire column is here.

Is helping the poor falling out of fashion?

2011-10-25T13:06:00.005-04:00

David Gibson and Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service report today on a new survey that “American Catholics have by and large remained loyal to the core teachings and sacraments of their faith, but increasingly tune out the hierarchy on issues of sexual morality.”

Michele Dillon, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire and a co-author of the report, was quoted as saying, “It’s the core creedal sacramental issues that really matter to American Catholics, more than the external trappings of church authority.”

We recommend that you read the entire article here. However, as people who care about matters of peace and justice, we were concerned to read this:

In the 2011 survey, 60 percent of Catholics said you could be a good Catholic without donating time or money to help the poor, up from 44 percent in 2005. Similarly, three-quarters (74 percent) said you could be a good Catholic without donating time or money to a parish, up from 58 percent six years earlier.

Even among the “highly committed” Catholics, the importance of helping the poor fell from 39 percent to 30 percent in the past six years, which co-author William D’Antonio of Catholic University attributed to a “recession that they weren’t confronting in 2005.”

We believe that the importance of helping the poor should be increasing in a recession, even if the actual ability of many people to help as much as in the past might be decreasing.

Meanwhile, over at America magazine, the editors write, “‘Let the church do it’ has proved an appealing notion on the 2012 campaign trail.” However, looking at some facts (not including the bad news reported above) shows that expecting churches to make up a loss in government spending might just be wishful thinking.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate decided to take a look at the potential for church-based welfare. C.A.R.A. concentrated its analysis on one federal program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called “food stamps.” Last year this $68 billion program supported the diets of 18.6 million households. Assuming that every Catholic parish household would increase its weekly giving five-fold, from an average of $9.40 a week to just over $50 each week, C.A.R.A. reports that the Catholic Church in the United States could, after paying its own not insignificant expenses, conceivably pay for half the current federal food stamp budget.

Coming up with the revenue for the rest of what government does thus appears a daunting task. Last year Professor Wayne Flynt, of Auburn University, speculated that the 10,000 or so houses of worship in his home state of Alabama might be able to take care of its poor residents. “All you have to do is for your congregation to adopt 50 to 100 poor people,” he said, “and mentor them, and love them, and educate them and nurture them…. And I’ll guarantee you that if you do that, it will be closer to what Christ intended than Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.” And the chances of that? “They will never do it,” Flynt said. “[T]he churches will not do it.”

The editors go on to address the long-standing Catholic concept of subsidiarity:

The concept does indeed discourage an overbearing government response to social concerns that could be ably addressed at lower levels of social agency. But subsidiarity does not exclude all government response to social need. Indeed, Catholic social teaching argues that it is the obligation of government—from local to state and on up to the federal level, as circumstances require—to protect human dignity that might be diminished by deprivation. The Catholic tradition, in fact, maintains an affirmative view of the positive role of government in addressing needs that have not been satisfied by the market system. And from this perspective the church accepts a collaborative, supplemental function with government, not replacing it or standing as a counterforce to it.

We all share responsibility for the common good. It is an obligation we can partly meet through our government—a higher association of our neighbors and friends and family, acting on behalf of all.

The entire article is here.

Vatican issues document to rein in global markets

2011-10-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

Catholic News Service reports on the new Vatican document that calls for the gradual creation of a world political authority with broad powers to regulate financial markets and rein in the "inequalities and distortions of capitalist development."

The document said the current global financial crisis has revealed "selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale." A supranational authority, it said, is needed to place the common good at the center of international economic activity.

The 41-page text was titled, "Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority." Prepared by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, it was released Oct. 24 in several languages, including a provisional translation in English.

The document cited the teachings of popes over the last 40 years on the need for a universal public authority that would transcend national interests. The current economic crisis, which has seen growing inequality between the rich and poor of the world, underlines the necessity to take concrete steps toward creating such an authority, it said.

One major step, it said, should be reform of the international monetary system in a way that involves developing countries. The document foresaw creation of a "central world bank" that would regulate the flow of monetary exchanges; it said the International Monetary Fund had lost the ability to control the amount of credit risk taken on by the system.

The entire article, which contains many more details, is available here.

Rendering unto Caesar

2011-10-24T21:37:00.003-04:00

Earlier this month, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan preached on one of the most familiar Gospel readings, which contains these words of Jesus, “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but to God what belongs to God.” He notes that, “for 2000 years we, His followers, have been struggling to keep that delicate balance.”

Jesus and His Church, of course, have always encouraged us to be “in the world but not of it,” so, political responsibility, faithful citizenship, is a duty, a virtue . . .

For 2000 years we followers of Jesus have been trying to balance our duties to God and our duties to Caesar, to our government, longing for a society where the two orders are allied, not in conflict.

Our attempts these past two millennia have been awkward. At times we have erred on the side of our faith, believing that government owes religion certain privileges, power, dominion, even that government should enforce and impose a particular creed. This, of course, is theocracy; it is bad for the believer, bad for the Church, and bad for society, as we have learned the hard way.

At other times, we have erred on the side of attributing to the government a power and an authority reserved to God alone, reducing faith, religion, the Church, to a harassed, handcuffed hobby.

He then goes on to quote Blessed John Paul II, who spoke the following words on the mall in our nation’s capital thirty-two years ago:

Human-Christian values triumph when any system is reformed that authorized the exploitation of any human being; when upright service and honesty in public servants is promoted; when the dispensing of justice is fair and the same for all; when responsible use is made of the material and energy resources of the world -- resources that are meant for the benefit of all; when the environment is preserved intact for the future generations. Human-Christian values triumph by subjecting political and economic considerations to human dignity, by making them service the cause of every life created by God.

They both are correct. To read the rest of the homily, go here.

Catholic lethargy in public square

2011-10-22T16:06:00.004-04:00

Russell Shaw, a contributing editor at Our Sunday Visitor, writes incisively about the documents issued by our bishops and the Vatican, and how few of us read them or even know about them. For all the work that goes into preparing these documents and statements, the sad truth is that, for the average person in the pews, they do not exist.

I was reminded of this by news of a study showing only 16 percent of American Catholics recall even hearing about the most recent of the “political responsibility” statement published quadrennially by the American bishops. And three-quarters of those who’d heard of it said it had “no influence at all” how they voted in 2008.

Yes, a small number of professional Church watchers have been arguing about these documents ever since the bishops’ conference began publishing them in 1976. They have been, and to some extent still are, a big bone of contention between liberal and conservative Catholic activists. Whether that will be true of the version forthcoming for next year’s election remains to be seen.

But hold that argument for another day. The point I’m making now is that, except for the activists, very few Catholics have read or heeded these much-discussed documents.

It’s no surprise. As somebody who drafted many bishops’ statements some years ago and did media relations on behalf of many others, I have no hesitation about saying it’s been this way a long time. Not just with bishops’ documents either. The same is true of documents from the pope and Roman Curia. Catholics by and large don’t read them or know what they say.

There are several reasons. Church documents tend to be long and difficult for people without much practice reading them. These days they’re readily available on the Internet, but people still must make a small effort to access them — and they don’t. Priests rarely preach on them, and while Catholic papers faithfully report on them, many Catholics can’t be bothered to read the Catholic press to find out what’s going on.

Thus, what many Catholics know about the Church and the teaching of the magisterium comes to them largely (if it comes at all) from the reporting of the secular media. And secular media generally do a better job covering high school field hockey than reporting important statements by the bishops and the pope.

And that is one of the reasons we will be making an effort in coming days to make people more aware of this blog. We hope that it will be a place where people can come for a quick update on what is happening in the area of peace and justice, primarily from a Catholic perspective, but also with an awareness that there are others in the world with many good and wise things to add to the conversation.

We also will strive to be a resource, with links to the many other resources available on-line.

We will explain not just why the Church is involved in matters of peace and justice, but also will offer opportunities for our readers to get involved as well.

To begin, take another look at the top right-hand side of this page. There you will find links not only to the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, but also the New York State Catholic Conference and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Also there is a link to The Busy Christian's Guide to Catholic Social Teaching, a fascinating, illustrated, easy-to-read presentation of teachings going back to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum, issued in 1891.

We hope that you will explore what we have to offer, and that you will return often to see what we have added.

Differing philosophies on how to redistrict

2011-10-21T19:18:00.001-04:00

Felicia Krieg of The Legislative Gazette has a story in this week’s newspaper about redistricting and an issue that should concern all of us, i.e., the difference in populations between legislative districts. According to the paper:

The populations of current Senate and Assembly districts are too inconsistent, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and NYPIRG, and both are hoping to reform this in a bill currently before the Legislature. But another good government group, Common Cause, is warning that more flexibility in a district's population may be needed in order to keep communities of interest intact and "reasonably compact."

In the Redistricting Reform Act of 2011, the governor recommends a plus or minus 1 percent standard deviation in a given district. And an Oct. 7 report on redistricting released by the New York Public Interest Research Group supports the governor's recommendation. It calls the plus or minus 1 percent proposed maximum standard deviation "not only desirable, but feasible and doable."

Legislative district lines are redrawn every ten years, based on U.S. Census data. The last of the 12 public hearings held by the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR), charged with drawing new legislative districts based on population, was held on Oct. 5. Cuomo has said repeatedly that he would veto any new district lines drawn by legislators.

Standard deviation in a Senate or Assembly district's population shows how many percentage points the population is away from the population average of all the districts. Currently, Senate and Assembly districts in New York can vary as much as plus or minus 5 percent from the average district size.

While Common Cause/NY supports Cuomo's bill and NYPIRG's desire to carefully examine the past problems there have been with redistricting and some solutions to remedy them, Common Cause is recommending a plus or minus 3 percent maximum deviation so there is more leeway to keep communities of interest and municipalities intact and ensure relatively compact districts.

"While numerical equivalency is a key component of real redistricting reform, we are concerned that it comply with, not cost, other important good government criteria: maintaining communities of interest, keeping cities, towns, counties, and villages intact whenever possible, and drawing districts that are reasonably compact," said Susan Lerner, executive director for Common Cause/NY.

Lerner offered Albany County as an example to illustrate a problem with drawing districts using a plus or minus 1 percent standard deviation. The population of Albany County is 304,204, with a standard deviation of minus 2.57 percent. It makes more sense, Lerner said, to keep the county intact as one Senate district and have a greater standard deviation, rather than breaking it up to adhere to the plus or minus 1 percent rule.

The differences between several good government groups are presented in the rest of the article, which is here.

So long, it’s been good to know ya

2011-10-21T12:14:00.002-04:00

If we are not here tomorrow, it might be because of this, the end of the world, originally predicted for last May, but now scheduled for today. According to Reuters:

An evangelical broadcaster whose end-of-the-world prophecy earlier this year stirred a global media frenzy has vanished from the public eye and airwaves ahead of his recalibrated doomsday date, set for Friday.

Days after the apocalypse he originally predicted for May 21 conspicuously failed to materialize, Harold Camping emerged from a brief seclusion to say he had merely miscalculated by five months, and he pronounced a new Judgment Day, October 21.

The following month, the now 90-year-old former civil engineer was said by his California-based Christian radio network to have suffered a stroke that left him hospitalized.

He has largely dropped out of sight since then, and his daily radio program, "Open Forum," broadcast on more than 60 U.S. stations, has been canceled.

Moreover, there is little evidence that swarms of believers who once fanned out in cities nationwide with placards advertising Camping's message -- some giving up life savings in anticipation of being swept into heaven -- were following a new doomsday countdown.

The rest of the article is here. When will people realize that the Book of Revelation was written to encourage persecuted Christians almost 2,000 years ago, and is not a Fodor's guide to the apocalypse?

The Virgin of the Silver Screen

2011-10-20T19:13:00.001-04:00

Judith Dupre, a New York Times bestseller author and the author of the acclaimed Full of Grace, Encountering Mary in Faith, Art & Life, will be in Albany on October 22 to present "Mary in the Movies," a fun and thought-provoking evening of film clips and commentary on the Virgin of the silver screen. She will look at classic and popular films that Mary has inspired, and examine her hold on the creative and spiritual imagination. The evening is a benefit for the Food Pantry of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul.

“Virgin and mother, peasant and queen, inspiration and apparition—no one persona fully expresses the identity of the Virgin Mary," said Ms. Dupre. "Through the centuries, she has inspired countless artists. Filmmakers are no exception, casting her in movies such as The Gospel According to St Matthew, The Passion of the Christ, and The Nativity Story. Marian references and symbolism abound in secular movies too, including The Godfather II, A Bridge Too Far, and Ella Enchanted."

The event will take place on October 22 at St. Vincent's Church, 900 Madison Avenue in Albany. There will be a Soup and Bread Supper at 6 p.m. in the community room, followed by Mary in the Movies at 7 p.m in the Church. Afterwards, dessert will be provided in the community room, at which time copies of Full of Grace will be available for sale and signing by the author.

A free will offering will benefit those who come to the St. Vincent's Food Pantry.

Vatican to issue document on global financial reform

2011-10-19T13:28:00.002-04:00

Catholic News Service (CNS) is reporting that the Vatican has scheduled a news conference for October 24 to release a document “on reform of the global financial system and the potential role of a public regulatory authority.” According to CNS:

The Vatican said the document would address "reform of the international financial system with a view toward a general public authority."

The wording refers to a section of the 1963 encyclical "Peace on Earth" ("Pacem in Terris"), which stated:

"Today the universal common good presents us with problems which are worldwide in their dimensions; problems, therefore, which cannot be solved except by a public authority with power, organization and means co-extensive with these problems, and with a worldwide sphere of activity."

In recent months, the Vatican's justice and peace council has convened experts for discussions of the ethical dimension of the global financial crisis. At one conference sponsored by the council last May, participants said Catholics were looking for guidance from the Vatican on ethical principles for the world of finance and the environment.

In his 2009 encyclical "Charity in Truth" ("Caritas in Veritate"), Pope Benedict XVI addressed the worsening effects of the global crisis and said there was "an urgent need of a true world political authority" that could give poorer nations a bigger voice in financial decision-making, help manage the global economy, guarantee food security, better protect the environment and regulate migration.

The entire article is available here.

Freedom from hunger?

2011-10-18T10:39:00.004-04:00

An alert reader sent us a link to yesterday's News Briefs from Catholic News Service, which reported on the Pope's statement on hunger:

Pope Benedict XVI appealed for immediate and long-term relief for the world's hungry, saying the right to adequate nourishment is a fundamental part of the right to life. The hunger crisis that affects millions of people today is a sign of the deep gulf between the haves and the have-nots of the world and calls for changes in lifestyle and in global economic mechanisms, the pope said in a message marking World Food Day Oct. 16.

. . .

"Freedom from the yoke of hunger is the first concrete manifestation of that right to life which, although solemnly proclaimed, often remains far from being effectively implemented," he said. The theme of this year's World Food Day focused on food prices, and the pope said current pricing volatility reflected the tendency toward speculation on food commodities. He said a new global attitude is needed. "There are clear signs of the profound division between those who lack daily sustenance and those who have huge resources at their disposal," he said. Given the dramatic nature of the problem, reflection and analysis are not enough -- action must be taken, he said.

The entire news brief is here. It is the fourth item listed.

Anti-Poverty Week

2011-10-17T15:57:00.002-04:00

This is Anti-Poverty Week in Australia (October 16-22). The main aims of Anti-Poverty Week are to:

Strengthen public understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and hardship around the world and in Australia;

Encourage research, discussion and action to address these problems, including action by individuals, communities, organisations and governments.

Everyone who is interested in helping to reduce poverty and hardship here or overseas is encouraged to organise their own activities during the Week or join in some being organised by other people.

In addition to resources about poverty in Australia, the website offers resources from around the world, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services.

The Australian website offers a series of Gospel reflections by Sister Veronica Lawson RSM from the Sisters of Mercy Ballarat Province that we think you might find useful.

Even though it is not Anti-Poverty Week here in the USA, we suggest you view some of these excellent resources to become familiar with the extent of the problem both here and elsewhere.

Does reading the Bible make you liberal?

2011-10-16T19:32:00.001-04:00

Christianity Today reports on a recent poll from LifeWay Research which “looked into what happens when one actually reads the Bible, especially when one reads it independently outside the church.”

Perhaps we've assumed that such questions would be redundant, merely one more measure of religiosity, along with how often one attends church, how literally one views the Bible, and how much one prays. When researchers look at these indicators, they usually find a correlation with both political and moral conservativism. It's not always the case, but it is a trend. Reading the Bible on one's own makes a difference, too. The interesting part, however, is the unexpected difference it makes.

Frequent Bible reading has some predictable effects on the reader. It increases opposition to abortion as well as homosexual marriage and unions. It boosts a belief that science helps reveal God's glory. It diminishes hopes that science will eventually solve humanity's problems. But unlike some other religious practices, reading the Bible more often has some liberalizing effects—or at least makes the reader more prone to agree with liberals on certain issues. This is true even when accounting for factors such as political beliefs, education level, income level, gender, race, and religious measures (like which religious tradition one affiliates with, and one's views of biblical literalism).

. . . .

Some of the most interesting findings relate to moral attitudes. "How important is it," the survey asked, "to actively seek social and economic justice in order to be a good person?" Again, as would be expected, those with more liberal political leanings were more likely to say it's very or somewhat important. And those who read the Bible more often were more likely to agree. Indeed, they were almost 35 percent more likely to agree at each point on Baylor's five-point scale. That may be bad news for Glenn Beck, who last year told believers to leave their churches if they hear "social justice" language being used. Likewise, contrary to liberal media stereotypes, those who are most engaged in their faith (by directly and frequently reading its source material) are those who are most supportive of social and economic justice. A reading, politically conservative literalist is only slightly less supportive than a non-reading, politically liberal non-literalist.

. . .

Why The Bible Pushes You Leftward

The discussion becomes even more interesting when we consider who is most likely to read the Bible frequently. It's evangelicals and biblical literalists, those who tend to be more conservative on these topics. In other words, those who read the Bible most often are more conservative, but the more they read the Bible, the more likely it is that their views will change, at least on these topics.

Why does this happen? One possible explanation is that readers tend to have expectations of a text prior to reading it. Given the Bible's prominence in our society, it's little wonder that many people think they know what's in it before they open it up. But once they start reading it on their own, they are bound to be surprised by something, and this surprising new content is then integrated and grafted on to the familiar. Beliefs do change with the addition of new information.

But it doesn't have to be unfamiliar content to surprise the reader. It just has to be personally relevant. Frequent Bible readers may have different views of biblical authority, but they tend to read it devotionally, looking for ways in which Scripture is speaking directly to them. They will read until struck by something that sticks out in the text. Even if the reader thinks the Bible has some error or needs a lot of interpretation, this thunderbolt moment can take on tremendous personal significance.

But frequent Bible readers don't just see the Bible as personal. They also see it as authoritative, written by an author who had a specific context and intent, and they want to conform to its message. After all, why read the Bible with no desire to embrace what it teaches?

In short, sometimes reading the Bible can change views and attitudes because readers are surprised by what's in it. Other times, it's just a matter of discipleship.

You can read the entire article here.

70th Anniversary

2011-10-15T21:57:00.001-04:00

Angela Cave, staff writer for The Evangelist, has an article in the most recent issue of the paper about the 70th anniversary of Capital Area Council of Churches, “looking back at its evolution from a simple ecumenical group into a provider of social services.”

"It has moved into the community in very creative ways," said Rev. Robert Lamar, pastor emeritus of First Presbyterian Church in Albany and past executive director of the council.

Rev. Lamar has been involved in the council since the late 1950s. He described those early days as focused on "churchy business." But today, the council runs an emergency homeless shelter, prison ministries, incarceration prevention services, peace and justice forums and CROP Walks to support food pantries and soup kitchens.

The CACC oversees an interfaith prayer room at the Albany International Airport and chaplaincy programs at nursing homes and at The University at Albany and Albany Medical Center.

CACC leaders are discussing challenges facing local faith and secular communities. About 85 churches, mostly Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox and mainline Protestants from Albany and southern Rensselaer Counties, are CACC members. Affiliate members include the First Unitarian Universalist Society and the Unification Church. Another 7,000 individuals are also members.

Less than a year ago, Rev. George Brennan was named the first Catholic executive director of the council.

"I feel a lot of positive energy," said Father Brennan, who is pastor of Our Lady of Hope parish in Copake Falls. "I think we have a lot to learn from one another."

Father Brennan has visited 70 churches since he began his role. He's been impressed by the CACC's "baptism witnesses" - members who attend baptisms at each other's churches.

The pastor introduced the practice at his own parish. The ecumenical witnesses serve as a "reminder that we're baptized into the Christian community," he explained.

The rest of the article is here.

Domestic Violence Awareness

2011-10-14T20:30:00.001-04:00

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The bishops' pastoral response to domestic violence against women states, in part:

Violence against women in the home has serious repercussions for children. Over 50 percent of men who abuse their wives also beat their children. Children who grow up in violent homes are more likely to develop alcohol and drug addictions and to become abusers themselves. The stage is set for a cycle of violence that may continue from generation to generation.

The Church can help break this cycle. Many abused women seek help first from the Church because they see it as a safe place. Even if their abusers isolate them from other social contacts, they may still allow them to go to church. Recognizing the critical role that the Church can play, we address this statement to several audiences:

- To women who are victims of violence and who may need the Church's help to break out of their pain and isolation;

- To pastors, parish personnel, and educators, who are often the first responders for abused women;

-To men who abuse and may not know how to break out of the cycle of violence; and

-To society, which has made some strides towards recognizing the extent of domestic violence against women.

We recognize that violence against women has many dimensions. This statement is not meant to be all-inclusive, but rather to be an introduction, along with some practical suggestions of what dioceses and parishes can do now.

We suggest that you read the entire statement.

More on redistricting

2011-10-10T08:26:00.002-04:00

Last week, Jimmy Vielkind of the Times Union reported:

When LATFOR, the legislative panel charged with the controversial redistricting process, held its latest hearing Wednesday on Long Island, several witnesses drew attention to the area around Brentwood, which in contrast to wealthier communities in Suffolk County is denser and has a higher proportion of black and Latino residents.

The area is split among four Senate districts -- all occupied by Republicans.

According to researchers at the good-government group Common Cause, the neighborhood is one of the clearest examples of partisan gerrymandering. It illustrates a process called "cracking," in which certain pockets of voters -- often members of racial minorities -- are parceled off to several districts so their collective voting tendencies are diluted.

"When Hispanics march along Fifth Avenue in Brentwood in our annual parade they have a leg in one district and another in the adjacent district," said Assemblyman Phil Ramos, D-Central Islip. His district was created in the last round of redistricting, in 2002, from three other districts. He was the first Latino elected to the Legislature from Suffolk County; Latinos now comprise 14.9 percent of the voting-age population in the county.

While saying his election has helped steer more services to the area he represents -- school aid, a new state park -- Ramos said he believes courts are the best route to achieve minority representation. The federal Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination against racial or ethnic minorities in any electoral practice, including redistricting. The federal Department of Justice can sue to enforce its provisions, and three New York counties -- Brooklyn, Bronx and parts of Manhattan -- require pre-approval from the DOJ before implementing any electoral changes.

But Suffolk County lacks the requirement, as does Queens, which has seen an increase in its Asian-American population around Flushing, currently split into two districts represented by white senators -- and Monroe County, where majority-minority Rochester is split between two white senators.

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat who is black, said a more independent process would produce better results. He accused Republicans who have long controlled the Senate as being "particularly masterful" at cracking in Suffolk, Nassau and Monroe counties.

A memo written in 2001 by a Senate Republican staffer -- recently recirculated by Senate Democrats -- referred to minority areas on Long Island as "politically undesirable."

Rex Smith, editor of the Times Union, previously wrote about the issue of redistricting. He does not present a flattering picture of our legislators.

Almost everybody in the Legislature -- 60 out of 62 senators, and 121 out of 150 Assembly members -- promised last year to support independent redistricting, rather than leaving it to the two-party legislative commission that has done the job before. But most of them lied: No independent redistricting plan emerged from the Legislature this year. So the same old system -- Democrats drawing lines favoring Democrats, Republicans drawing lines favoring Republicans -- is rolling toward an ugly finish.

Cuomo has said over and over that he will veto redistricting that isn't done by an independent group. Will he, really?

A veto could send redistricting to the federal courts, where delays caused by legal maneuvering could lead to months of political chaos. So a Cuomo veto might mess with his mantra: While it would be both predictable and disciplined, it would border on unreasonable.

Still, to not deliver on the veto threat would be to abandon a key piece of the reform agenda that Cuomo promised New Yorkers. And when you're as popular as Cuomo is, you can handle the sort of onslaught that might follow a veto.

Recently Cuomo has signaled that he is open to nonpartisan redistricting approved by the Legislature under some conditions -- for example, if it recognizes communities of interest, such as ethnic and cultural similarities, and if it is based on demographics, rather than incumbent legislators' political needs. That's just the sort of compromise suggested by Common Cause, the good government lobby.

Finding religion in the sex abuse scandal

2011-10-06T10:15:00.002-04:00

Associated Press reporter Tom Breen became a weekly Mass attendee after educating himself on the Catholic abuse scandals for his journalism job.

Breen writes:

I was baptized a Catholic, but never really in any tradition other than a vague understanding of Christianity coupled with a sort of tribal pull toward the Catholic Church. My mother died when I was very young, and my father had enough bad experiences with church growing up in an Irish neighborhood in Chicago that he wasn’t particularly driven to make sure my brother and I were raised as active members of the faith.

My father is a journalist, though, and it was his influence that steered me toward news. After college, I was working at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., at the time the most recent sex abuse scandals began to break in Boston. Partly because I had some Catholic bric-a-brac on my desk, my editor assumed I actually knew something about the church, and so I was assigned to cover a few local stories related to the scandal.

I quickly realized that I didn’t know anything about Catholicism, and so to avoid embarrassing myself and the paper I resolved to learn what I could. In addition to reading everything I could get my hands on, I started pitching stories on religious topics that had nothing to do with the abuse scandal, hoping to bring myself up to speed.

This continued after I moved to the Journal Inquirer, the paper in my hometown of Manchester, Conn. By now I had discovered that I was interested not just in Catholic stories, but in religion generally. It was not only a fascinating topic, but it was one that not many other reporters were interested in covering, so I could pursue stories without stepping on any toes. I also had tremendously knowledgeable editors who were hungry for religion news. One of them put it to me in a way I’ve always remembered: compare the amount of resources the press spends on covering primary elections, he told me, with the number of people who vote in primary elections. Now compare the resources spent on covering religion with the number of people who attend a weekly worship service.

So that’s how I became hooked on religion coverage. On kind of a parallel track, I eventually became a devout Catholic, going through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and becoming a weekly churchgoer. Ironically, it was my work covering elements of the sex abuse scandal that led me to become an “official” Catholic; I learned all I could about the faith to make sure my stories were accurate, and my learning convinced me this was the truth.

You can read more here. And thanks to Sarah Pulliam Bailey at GetReligion.org for doing the legwork.

Biking to Florida

2011-10-05T09:44:00.002-04:00

Don Berens, a parishioner at St. Pius X church in Loudonville, is pedaling his bicycle from Maine to Florida to raise money for the Emergency Assistance Program of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany.

If this news gives you a sense of deja vu, it might be because, in 2008, Don rode his bicycle from Los Angeles to Boston for the benefit of the same program.
Don’s journey began on September 22 when he and other cyclists left Portland Maine. If all goes well, they will arrive in Daytona on October 15.

Don’s goal is to bike 1,600 miles through thirteen states in 24 days. The goal of Catholic Charities is to raise money for every mile that Don bikes. All 100% of the funds collected will be used to fund the Emergency Assistance Program which supplies emergency help with utilities, food, shelter, clothing and transportation to those in need, regardless of faith, in the 14 counties of the diocese in eastern New York.

From the website:

Don explains: “Bikers know that, no matter how well prepared we may think we are, we sometimes have emergencies on the road and we need others’ help with food, water, directions, first aid or shelter in a thunderstorm. Good Samaritan strangers have bailed me out of more than one bicycling jam. It is fitting that this ride will promote the ability of Catholic Charities to help our neighbors who need a hand.

The heart and history of Catholic Charities lie in its concern for and response to persons in the greatest need. Let’s rally as a community and join this remarkable journey by pledging funds to help those less fortunate.

You can follow Don's adventure on his blog, here, and can even make a donation.

Renewing the Earth

2011-09-28T20:40:00.001-04:00

St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Delmar invites you to dinner and an evening with Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, Congressman Paul Tonko, and Riobart E. (Rob) Breen, Director of the Franciscan Ecology Center at Siena College on Monday, October 17, at 6 p.m. in the School Cafeteria, 42 Adams Place in Delmar.

The evening's topic is "Renewing the Earth".

For more information or to make reservations, please call the Church Office at 439-4951.

Who Pays for Redistricting?

2011-09-25T09:45:00.002-04:00

In the American political system, there is perhaps no better way of measuring the importance of an issue than by looking at how much money is being spent on it, except, perhaps, the lengths that people will go to insure that no one knows who is contributing that money. By that measurement, redistricting must be a very important issue.

An investigation by ProPublica, a Pulitzer prize-winning, independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, reveals the money and the contributors in redistricting fights across the nation. For example:

Skillful redistricting can, of course, help create Republican or Democratic districts, but it can also grace incumbents with virtually guaranteed re-election or leave them with nearly no chance at all. In the process, it can also create seats almost certain to be held by minorities or break those same groups apart, ensuring that they have almost no voice.

But it’s not cheap, and that’s where corporations and other outside interests come in. They can provide the cash for voter data, mapping consultants and lobbyists to influence state legislators, who are in charge of redistricting in most states. Outside interests can also fund the inevitable lawsuits that contest nearly every state's redistricting plan after it is unveiled.

In Minnesota, for instance, the Republicans’ legal efforts to influence redistricting are being financed through a group called Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting.

Fair Redistricting describes itself as independent, but it has much of its leadership in common with the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a group with ties to the political empire of the Koch brothers, industrialists from Kansas who’ve spent millions funding conservative causes. The head of the Freedom Foundation, Annette Meeks, told ProPublica she has “no involvement” with Fair Redistricting. But both organizations’ tax filings list the same address: Meeks’ home address.

Fair Redistricting is registered under the name of her husband, Jack Meeks, who is also on the board of the Freedom Foundation. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Who is actually paying for Fair Redistricting’s lawsuit and lawyers? And what district lines are they pushing for? The group doesn’t have to say and has so far kept its finances and plans under wraps. Annette Meeks did not respond to questions about the group’s donors or its ties to the Koch brothers, but she said the group complies with all legal filing requirements. But the group’s public tax filings contain no information on its contributors.

The rest of the article is here.

A spike for Albany’s poverty rate

2011-09-23T20:20:00.002-04:00

Today’s Times Union has a front-page story by Chris Churchill about the fact that, from 2009 to 2010, the share of Albany residents living below the federal poverty line increased from 22.9 percent to 28.2 percent. The article, available here, also noted:

“Albany is hardly the only place with more poor people. The economic downturn has delivered rising poverty -- and declining incomes -- in most areas, locally and nationally. But the poverty jump in Albany easily outpaced the regionwide increase. Poverty in the Capital Region metropolitan area, the census said, increased from 9.9 percent to 11.5 percent.”

Earlier this week, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued the following news release about how the Church can respond to news such as this:

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), urged bishops and other Catholic clergy nationwide to bring the issue of poverty into their homilies.

He also underscored the need for educational and advocacy efforts on behalf of the poor and jobless.

Archbishop Dolan made the appeal in a September 15 letter to the nation’s bishops at the urging of the USCCB Administrative Committee. The Committee oversees USCCB work between plenary sessions and met in Washington, September 13-14.

“Widespread unemployment, underemployment and pervasive poverty are diminishing human lives, undermining human dignity, and hurting children and families,” he wrote. “I hope we can use our opportunities as pastors, teachers, and leaders to focus public attention and priority on the scandal of so much poverty and so many without work in our society.” The entire letter can be found here.

Living Out Our Eucharistic Mission

2011-09-20T16:48:00.002-04:00

Through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Catholics and friends of CCHD across the country help poor and low income Americans to help themselves and their communities out of poverty.

Since 1970, the Catholic Campaign has contributed over $280 million to more than 7,800 low-income–led, community-based projects that strengthen families, create jobs, build affordable housing, fight crime, and improve schools and neighborhoods. CCHD requires that projects develop community leadership and participation so that their solutions to poverty will be long-lasting and effective, and so that CCHD’s investment in people will help break the cycle of poverty. CCHD also educates Catholics about the causes of poverty and seeks to build solidarity between impoverished and affluent persons.

In the newsletter of the CCHD, Jill Rauh, a staff member of the Peace and Human Development Office of the USCCB, writes an article entitled Living Out Our Eucharistic Mission:

In the new edition of the Roman Missal that will be used in English-speaking parishes starting in late November, we will hear two new phrases that may be used at the Dismissal: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” and “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”

For Catholics involved in the good work of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), these words will describe what many already experience: after gathering and being transformed, we are then sent out to announce the Gospel!

What does it mean to announce the Gospel? Luke 4:18 describes the work that is central to Jesus’ life and ministry, and that continues to inspire Christians: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, / because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. / He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives / and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, / and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

This is the same verse that CCHD often uses to describe its own mission for transformation of communities—communities where children are captive, oppressed, or burdened by weak education systems, unsafe neighborhoods, absent fathers, inadequate nutrition, and systemic racism. Announcing the Gospel involves spiritual transformation; it also involves addressing poverty, overcoming oppression, and working for social transformation.

Celebrating the Eucharist with spiritual sincerity transforms us individually and as members of a community called to bring love and hope to the person living in poverty, the stranger, the unborn—all those whose dignity is threatened. Participating in the eucharistic celebration also reminds us of the God-given dignity of all people; it inspires people who have been marginalized to reclaim their dignity and empowers them to fight poverty and injustice.

In Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the “food of truth”—the Eucharist—“demands that we denounce inhumane situations” such as poverty, inequality, and violence (no. 90). The Eucharist also spurs us to imitate Christ’s sacrifice through our own “self-gift” to others (no. 14). But the idea that the Eucharist propels us to social mission is not new. In the fourth century, St. John Chrysostom reflected on Matthew 25:31-46: “Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked” (Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, 50:3-4: PG 58, 508-509), and St. Augustine urged us, “Become what you receive” (Sermon 272). More recently, Blessed John Paul II called the Eucharist “the school of active love for neighbor” (Dominicae Cenae, no. 6) and that which “increases, rather than lessens, our sense of responsibility for the world today” (Address, June 26, 2003).

The rest of the article is available here.

Be Part of the Solution for Peace

2011-09-19T07:32:00.001-04:00

The Oneness in Peace Spiritual Center/Ecumenical House of Prayer, located at 49 Main Street in Germantown, is offering a program titled You Can Make A Difference: Be Part of the Solution for Peace on Wednesday, September 21, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Participants will learn to create a more peace-filled and just environment through contemplative and intercessory prayer for personal and global peace. Everyone is welcome. Registration is not necessary. Free will offering.

For more information, call 537-5678 or e-mail info@onenessinpeace.org

Forgiveness in an age of terrorism

2011-09-11T17:04:00.004-04:00

Deacon Walter Ayres, who serves as Chair of the Commission on Peace and Justice, used today's Gospel on forgiveness as a basis for a homily on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. You can send your comments to him at DeaconAyres@yahoo.com.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was getting off an Amtrak train at Penn Station with several co-workers when we received a call from the office. We learned that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

A few minutes later we received another call from the office, telling us about the second plane.

My boss decided it was time to get out of town. He cancelled the meeting and we all bought tickets on the next train to Albany.

There was a lot of confusion on that train ride back home. One of the passengers said that he had been at the World Trade Center earlier and left after someone came running out of the building shouting, “Go back, go back. They’ve got guns.”

Another told how he had heard there was a third plane in Washington, and that it had hit the White House.

Of course, neither of those stories was true, but we did not know it at the time.

As I said, there was much confusion.

Today, 10 years later, there still is confusion, some of which may come from today’s Gospel.

That confusion is about forgiveness.

Who we forgive and when we forgive.

I believe in a forgiving God. In a loving God. In a God who wants us to live in a world of peace and justice.

I also believe in a God who wants us to see the world as it is, not as we wish it would be.

As we worship today, our nation is in a state of high alert for another potential terrorist threat. Do the people who may be carrying out this threat need to be forgiven?

Yes. At the appropriate time.

But right now what they need . . . is to be stopped.

And so we pray for all those brave men and women who are trying to do just that; who are risking their lives for our safety.

. . .

True faith recognizes the reality of evil in the world, and the need to stop it, not by any means possible, but by any means compatible with Christ’s teachings.

One can fight out of a sense of justice and the need to defend one’s family.

We do it with love for those we defend, not hatred for those we fight.

And while we forgive sin, we also punish crime.

In a sinful world, there often is a need to fight evil.

But true faith does not just recognize the evil in others. True faith recognizes the evil in our own lives.

All of us have done things for which we need to be forgiven. None of us is perfect.

It is this imperfection in our own hearts that should lead us to forgive the sins and faults of others, and to seek forgiveness from those we have harmed.

A recognition of our own weaknesses should allow us to apply one standard of forgiveness when we need to forgive. There should not be separate standards for those we love and those we may despise.

Who among us finds it possible to forgive the acts of people in other countries, but refuses to forgive mistakes or improper acts by our own leaders?

Or, who among us excuses whatever is done by our leaders, but cannot forgive the actions of those in other countries who may have been harmed by our efforts to prop up petty dictators for our own narrow economic interests?

As Christians, we are called to forgive our enemies as well as our friends.

That does not mean we ignore unjust or immoral acts, that we allow bullies to push us around or that we stay in toxic relationships when it may be time to leave.

After all, God wants us to be forgiving, not foolish.

We can forgive without having to forget.

We can forgive and still be angry.

Anger can be a normal and healthy emotion. What we do with that anger is what is important.

We can channel it into activities that help spare others from the sorrow we have endured, or we can stew in it as we become resentful and hateful people ourselves.

To help make sure that we end up as the former and not the latter, I want to leave you today with some homework.

For the next month, until the 11th of October, let’s pray for our enemies every day.

Those may be our enemies in other lands or in our neighborhood or even in our own families.

Let us pray that God will soften their hearts, as well as our own, to be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Let us pray not that they be converted to our way of thinking, but that all of us be open to the stirrings of God’s Word.

Let us pray that the will of God becomes our own desire, and that we have the courage and strength to do whatever it is that God is asking us to do to bring his peace, mercy and justice to a broken world.

Let us also pray that if our prayers do not change our enemies, that they at least change us, and help us to become the people we are meant to be, a people compassionate and caring, and, not least of all, forgiving.

And let us do this with a sense of love, and a sure knowledge that God will forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

St. Bernard’s Annual Convocation

2011-09-06T21:29:00.004-04:00

“THE JOY AND THE CHALLENGE OF THEOLOGY”

A conversation with Patricia Schoelles, SSJ, PhD and Katherine Hanley, CSJ, PhD.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 7 p.m. at the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, 900 Madison Avenue in Albany.

All are welcome to the St. Bernard’s at Albany 22nd Annual Convocation.

Theology and ministry move in a circle, each challenging and changing the other. We respond to Jesus’ call to discipleship and we search out Jesus in Scripture and in our lives. Theology helps the community of disciples wrestle with the big questions and reflect on them in the light of experience. Why? And how? These questions will be the focus of our evening.

Sister Pat Schoelles is President of St. Bernard’s School of Theology & Ministry and teaches Moral Theology.

Sister Kitty Hanley is Associate Dean of St. Bernard’s at Albany and teaches Spirituality.

Bishop Hubbard's Labor Day Message

2011-09-05T20:06:00.002-04:00

In his Labor Day message, published in The Evangelist, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard writes about the debt ceiling debate in Congress and how it might affect Americans. He writes:

On this Labor Day weekend, we are particularly concerned about how the action already taken last month and under consideration between now and Nov. 23 will affect America's workforce.

With the economy faltering and 25 million people in need of full-time work, almost everyone wants Washington and other governmental entities focused on how to create jobs and to get the economy going, not on slashing spending for the rising number of poor children and homeless, while sheltering tax havens for millionaires and billionaires.

More than four million Americans have been out of work for more than a year, the largest number of long-term unemployed since World War II; yet Congress has gone on a summer recess without extending unemployment benefits to their out-of-work constituents.

What is particularly distressing is the growing disparity of wealth in our country. In their new book, "How Washington made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class," John Hacker, a political scientist at Yale University, and Paul Pierson, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, posit that we have experienced a "30-year war" in which the long, slow struggle through the 20th century for greater equality of income and wealth has been reversed.

They note that, from 1979 until the eve of our current great recession, the top one percent have held 35 percent of our nation's wealth. Between 2001 and 2006, the top one percent amassed more than half the gains, while the median income of non-elderly households actually fell.

In fact, the top one-tenth of that one percent "received over 20 percent of all after-tax income gains between 1970 and 2005, compared with the 13.5 percent enjoyed by the bottom 60 percent of households."

In other words, the total of new income going to roughly 300,000 people was one and a half percent the size of the total going to roughly 180 million people.

In the last four decades, these authors conclude that our democracy has become the most economically unequal nation in the advanced world. Meanwhile, the working and middle classes have either fallen behind or kept up by going into debt and having more family members work longer hours.
. . .

Every Pope from Leo XIII to Benedict XVI has underscored that economic injustice, not economic growth, is the cornerstone of our Church's teaching. The Church condemns the social and personal damage done when employees and their families are treated as voiceless underlings or disposable parts.

Just last month, during his travels to World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain, Pope Benedict denounced "the profit-at-all-costs mentality" that has contributed to our current economic crisis. He noted that "people must be at the center of the economy, and the economy cannot be measured only by the maximization of profit, but rather according to the common good."

That is why Catholic social teaching has upheld the rights of workers to organize and to bargain with employers for a living wage and decent medical, disability and retirement benefits. Therefore, with workers under so much pressure and unions facing open attack - most recently in the state of Wisconsin - it is helpful, this Labor Day, to recall three fundamental themes of Catholic social teaching on labor:

1 Human dignity is achieved through work.

2 In a world of powerful corporations and weak borrowing power on the part of workers, unions are necessary for achieving a fair and decent livelihood for workers and their families.

3 The principal role of the government is to protect the common good by safeguarding and implementing the rights of working men and women.

It is true that unions have sometimes abused their powers, and when this happens they must be held accountable. "But without them," as Commonweal magazine editorializes, "who holds employers accountable?"

The rest of the message is here.

More on redistricting

2011-08-24T20:31:00.004-04:00

The New York Times has an editorial today on the current state of redistricting:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has taken a strong stand against gerrymandering. He put forward a good bill that would create an independent commission to draw political districts and promised to veto any new maps that are “partisan.” Albany’s pols are not giving up.

Mr. Cuomo’s bill went nowhere, despite the fact that a hefty majority of legislators signed a pledge in 2010 to support such a commission. The old-style task force is now drawing up maps, and the business-as-usual crowd is trying to figure out how to get around the veto threat.

The word on the street is that they may stall the release of the new maps for the 2012 election (and the decade to follow) until early next year. Then lawmakers can say it’s too late to use anything else.

Mr. Cuomo needs to fight back now. He should press the Legislature to create the real independent commission that was promised to the voters. If that fails —things don’t look promising — he should name his own commission to draw alternative maps, using the best redistricting practices outlined in his bill. Those include such basics as ensuring that each district has about the same number of voters, makes geographical sense and isn’t drawn to guarantee the election of one party or candidate.

The entire editorial is here. We suggest that you read it for another view on this important issue.

Answers to questions

2011-08-16T07:18:00.002-04:00

The Office for Social Justice, a division of Catholic Charities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, is a wonderful resource for information about Catholic social justice teaching. One example is Answers to 25 questions about Catholic social teaching, from an excellent introductory work on Catholic social teaching entitled Responses to 101 Questions on Catholic Social Teaching by Kenneth R. Himes O.F.M.

The link to that page is here.

Talking politics

2011-08-11T21:01:00.002-04:00

Paul Saffo is managing director of foresight at Discern, an institutional investment research firm in San Francisco. He recently wrote an article for the San Francisco Chronicle about how we can better discuss politics in this nation of democracy.

Americans don't talk politics enough. We have outsourced the conversation to quarrelsome politicians and talk show celebrities. The consequence is that Americans are failing at the most basic task of civics: the obligation to fully understand the issues facing us and participate as informed citizens in running our country. It is time to take the conversation back. Our democracy is utterly dependent upon an informed and engaged citizenry. We must talk to each other about politics to form thoughtful opinions and maybe learn something that will help us run our communities. We may as well start at home.
. . .
Of course, conversation alone is insufficient if the participants are clueless. Political conversation is not welcomed at American dinner tables in no small part because most Americans have no idea what they are talking about. A recent Newsweek poll suggests that 38 percent of Americans would fail the U.S. citizenship test, and a shocking 73 percent couldn't explain why we fought the Cold War.

This ignorance is precisely the problem we need to fix, and we can do it over dinner. Pick a topic to discuss, inform your guests and invite them to read up on it in advance. Something in the news is great, but make it bite-size.

To learn how this might done, read this.

Catholic Charities Clothing Drive

2011-08-06T09:18:00.002-04:00

Catholic Charities is helping disadvantaged job seekers with a unique clothing drive:

From now until August 31, Catholic Charities Housing Office (CCHO)—homeless housing and emergency services provider—is partnering with Men’s Wearhouse to help disadvantaged job seekers get a boost of self-confidence during the fourth annual National Suit Drive, the country’s largest collection of gently used business attire.

This is Catholic Charities Housing Office’s first time joining Men’s Wearhouse and approximately 200 other charities to distribute the items collected at more than 900 Men’s Wearhouse locations. Items collected include men’s and women’s suits, shirts, jackets, ties, belts, and shoes. Residents of Albany may donate their gently used and cleaned items at Men’s Wearhouse, 18 Wolf Road, Colonie, NY.

“With nearly one out of ten working-age men unemployed in this country, the weak economic recovery has disproportionately hurt the male workforce,” said George Zimmer, Men’s Wearhouse founder and CEO. “By collecting and donating professional clothing, Men’s Wearhouse aims to help men ‘suit up’ for job interviews and give them an important boost of confidence that will help them reach their goals.”
. . .
To thank donors for their generosity, Men’s Wearhouse will reward them with 50% off a purchase at Men’s Wearhouse and will donate a tie for every suit received. What’s more is that for every “like” on Facebook, Men’s Wearhouse will donate a $1 to the cause, up to $10,000.

You can learn more here. You also can help by posting this flier at your place of business.

First Fridays for Food Security

2011-08-05T07:16:00.003-04:00

What is First Fridays for Food Security?
On every first Friday for a year, eat meals that cost only as much as is allotted for a family of your size by the USDA Modified Thrifty Food Plan. (You will need to divide the weekly cost by seven.) This plan is used as the basis for food stamp allotments.* Many individuals or families may notice a disparity between the cost of their normal meals and the amount allotted in the food plan. The “cutting back” that will likely be required in order to stay “in budget” can be considered a type of fasting.

Why fast?
“Voluntary fasting from food creates in us a greater openness to God's Spirit and deepens our compassion for those who are forced to go without food. The discomfort brought about by fasting unites us to the sufferings of Christ. Fasting should bring to mind the sufferings of all those for whom Christ suffered.” (United States Catholic Bishops, Penitential Practices for Today’s Catholics, 2000)
Participating in this fast can make you open to the Holy Spirit and help you to walk in solidarity with all those for whom access to adequate, nutritious food is difficult.

. . .

On each first Friday, those participating can visit the Facebook event page to discuss their experiences and activities. There, they can also access prayer and educational resources from USCCB.

Religious leaders urge Obama to protect the poor in budget efforts

2011-07-26T07:56:00.001-04:00

Catholic News Service reports on last week’s meeting of religious leaders and President Obama:

The 40-minute session with the president "was very enlightening and energizing," said Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of Las Cruces, N.M., a member of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, one of the participants in the White House meeting.

"It was wonderful to see the president so engaged," the bishop told Catholic News Service in a separate interview. "He seems to accept our message."

That message is that political leaders should pay attention to the fundamental moral principle of putting the needs of the poor first in allocating scarce government resources, the bishop said.

He told the president that "as religious leaders, our concern is not which party wins the current political battles," but rather that "if we all don't speak up, who is likely to lose: the families trying to feed their kids, the jobless looking for work, the children who need health care, the hungry and sick and hopeless around the world."

. . .

"The poor have no powerful lobbyists," Bishop Ramirez told Obama. "But they have the most powerful moral claim on this process."

He and the other participants asked the president to "be their voice."

"You are at your best when you echo the Scriptures and remind us we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers," the bishop said he told Obama. "We need more of that from you."

Bishop Ramirez said of his one-day trip to Washington: "It's not every day the U.S. bishops get invited to the White House and get to talk about something as crucial as care for the poor."

The rest of the article is here.

Immaculee Ilibagiza, genocide survivor

2011-07-24T20:14:00.004-04:00

Here is what you need to know about Immaculee Ilibagiza, who will be honored at a fundraiser for Teresian House on Thursday:

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Immaculee Ilibagiza hid from the Hutus in her pastor's bathroom with seven other women. She emerged 91 days later, emaciated. Most of her family had been killed.

When Ilibagiza's hope faltered, she would pray for salvation on the rosary beads her Catholic father gave her and teach herself English from the Bible.

Ilibagiza is the author of the New York Times best-seller "Left to Tell," her story of faith and survival. She has also hosted a documentary titled "Ready to Forgive, An African Story of Grace," and a movie about her story will be released next year.

On Thursday, she will be the honored guest at the 21st Annual Teresian House Friendraiser Gala at the Saratoga National Golf Course.

Congratulations Father Rutherford

2011-07-20T19:45:00.000-04:00

Father Donald Rutherford, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, New York, is the new chief of chaplains of the U.S. Army. He holds the rank of major general and will be officially sworn in July 22.

Harry Potter and Social Justice

2011-07-16T08:16:00.001-04:00

Julie Clawson blogs about Harry Potter, the Deathly Hallows, and Mobilizing Kids for Social Justice at the blog of Sojourners:

Though the final movie of the Harry Potter series opens this Friday, the Harry Potter Alliance has been operating since 2005, and exists as a nonprofit organization intent on using the weapon of love (and a common affinity for Harry Potter) to combat the dark arts of our world. As their mission statement states, they use “parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality, and human rights. Our mission is to empower our members to act like the heroes that they love by acting for a better world.” And it’s working. With more than 100,000 members and nearly 60 chapters worldwide, this real world gathering of Dumbledore’s Army is making a difference.

The rest of the blog is here.

A conservative take on budget negotiations

2011-07-13T20:34:00.002-04:00

Conservative columnist David Brooks writes about the current budget battle and the clash over lowered spending versus higher taxes.

According to the Gallup Organization, only 20 percent of Americans believe the budget deal should consist of spending cuts only. Even among Republicans, a plurality believes there should be a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts.

Yet the G.O.P. is now oriented around this 20 percent. It is willing to alienate 80 percent of voters and commit political suicide because of its faith in the power of tax policy.

These three groups — bankers, Democratic Keynesians and staunch Republicans — have one thing in common: They all believe they have identified the magic lever. They believe they can control their economic fate.

Some of us do not believe there is a magic lever. Deficit spending stimulates growth, but not by that much. Tax increases are bad, but they are not disastrous. We believe that there are a thousand factors that go into economic growth, and no single one is dispositive.

We look at the tax cuts of 2001 and do not see tremendous gains. We look at the tax increase of 1982 and do not see a ruinous disaster. We look at high deficit eras and low deficit eras and do not see an easy correlation between deficit spending and growth. On the contrary, if you look around the world there’s a slight negative correlation between government size and prosperity.

We believe that if you rest everything on a single lever (Increase deficits! Cut taxes!), you give people a permission slip to be self-indulgent. They will spend or cut to their hearts’ content and soon you’ll be facing national bankruptcy. We believe that even if you are theoretically right, your policies will be distorted by human frailties and special interests.

The people in my group (you might call us conservatives) are more likely to embrace a low and steady approach to fiscal policy. Control debt. Control entitlements. Keep tax levels reasonable and the tax code simple. Work on the economic fundamentals: human capital, productivity, labor market flexibility, open trade, saving and investment. Don’t believe you can use magic levers to manipulate growth month to month.

People in my camp form a silent majority. But we have been astonishingly passive during these budget negotiations. The tax cut brigades and the Medicare/Spending brigades are well organized. The people who believe in balance and the fundamentals sit piously on the sidelines.

The tragedy is that in Barack Obama and John Boehner we have leaders who would like to do something big. They seem to know that you need bipartisan cover if you want to really cut spending. They seem to know circumstances for deficit reduction will only get worse in the years ahead.

But they are bracketed on all sides — by the tax cut and Medicare brigades, by the wonks hatching budget gimmicks that erode trust, by political hacks who don’t want to lose their precious campaign issues: tax cuts forever, Medicare spending without limit.

Mostly, they are buffeted by the proud, by those who think they have a magic lever to control human destiny and who will not compromise it away. This is the oldest story known to man.

The entire column is here.

Peace & Justice

Black Catholics

Strategies for a New Economy

Worse than we thought?

Priests choose to stay in Syria

Scarves for Africa

Public Policy Day

Rest in peace, Bishop Estabrook

Redistricting cynicism?

Redistricting reactions

Do facts matter?

Help for Haiti

NYADP

Americans' views on immigration

National Migration Week

A Pedagogy of Hope

Who are "the one percent?"

Catholic Conference Announces Legislative Agenda

Top 10 religion and politics stories to watch

The sounds of silence

Asian-American voters disenfranchised?

The 1,000 Faith Leaders Initiative

It runs in the family

Merry Christmas

Support grows for independent redistricting

More on CST and the Occupy Movement

Watching the future church

A visit to Occupy Albany

Fox News and the so-called “War on Christmas”

Thanking immigrants, legal or not

Bishops renew poverty awareness program

Government transparency (updated)

Is capitalism at odds with Christian values?

NY's tax and poverty rates a'changing

On Civility in Political Communication

Bishop Hubbard addresses global poverty

A labor strategist's tools

On visiting Occupy Albany

Remembering the martyrs of El Salvador

USCCB On-line Advent Calendar

SSM lawsuit may reveal government maneuvering

Troy poverty rate up 63 percent

Another perspective on redistricting

Today's political parties and the Donatists

Happy Thanksgiving

Updated "Work of Human Hands" Sales Schedule

New York State Redistricting Process Draws Lawsuit

Ike and the military -industrial complex

Themes Of Catholic Social Teaching

Are you brave enough to be a nun?

Examination Of Conscience In Light Of Catholic Social Teaching

Join us at Occupy Albany

Blessed Are the Merciful

Bishop cites importance of environmental stewardship

Reducing wrongful convictions

Rhetoric versus reality

Election Day

Archbishop Dolan calls for strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations

Where have all the voters gone?

Redistricting: the musical

Work of Human Hands Sales Schedule

Bishop DiMarzio on capital punishment

First Fridays for Food Security

Do-it-yourself redistricting

A history of Catholics helping the poor?

Are churches becoming more religious and less spiritual?

Catholic social teaching and Occupy Wall Street

Is helping the poor falling out of fashion?

Vatican issues document to rein in global markets

Rendering unto Caesar

Catholic lethargy in public square

Differing philosophies on how to redistrict

So long, it’s been good to know ya

The Virgin of the Silver Screen

Vatican to issue document on global financial reform

Freedom from hunger?

Anti-Poverty Week

Does reading the Bible make you liberal?

70th Anniversary

Domestic Violence Awareness