Poverty and Choices

Mirror of Justice links to an interesting study by the Center for American Progress entitled "From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half." A noble aim, given that almost 40 million people live in poverty in the United States (one in eight), and poverty rates have risen dramatically under the Bush presidency (from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.6 percent in 2005). These figures are among the highest in the developed world. Inequality is also mushrooming, with the richest 1 percent of the population holding the largest share of income since 1929.

The study puts forward four key recommendations that, if implemented, would reduce poverty by 26 percent immediately. The recommendations are: (i) raise the minimum wage; (ii) expand the earned income tax credit (in-work benefits); (iii) provide childcare subsidies to poor families; (iv) expand the child tax credit.

The overall cost of these measures: $90 billion a year. To put this in perspective, Bush's tax cuts cost around $400 billion a year, while tax cuts for families making more than $200,000 a year alone costs more than $100 billion. And of course, the Iraq war: $420 billion and counting...

So there is a choice. It is possible to reverse the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush era, and still enact policies that would dramatically reduce poverty rates. Do we want to help the poor and the needy, as Christ commanded, or do we want to give handouts to the rich and spend money on war? For a Christian, the answer is clear. For the Bush administration, not so much.

Does Bush Still Not Care About Bin Laden?

It turns out that the Taliban is giving Osama Bin Laden full credit for the attack on the US military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, during the visit of Dick Cheney. Although Cheney was unharmed, 23 people died in this attack. I wonder if Cheney shares his bosses views about Bin Laden. Remember, Bush-- ever anxious to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction-- got quickly bored by the Saudi terror master. On a number of occasions, Bush made statements like "I truly am not that concerned about him" and capturing Bin Laden is "not a top priority use of American resources."

The mind boggles. Imagine a Democrat had made these statements. And then imagine the intensity of the right-wing noise machine in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Cheney. In a sense, though, the Democrats have only themselves to blame. The reason: every time a Bushite makes a ludicrous statement about how voting for Democrats means everybody is going to die, the typical response (as Kevin Drum puts it) is "whining". For instance, Rudy Guiliani, his campaign under attack from all sides, whips out the fear card. Instead of using this as a chance to explain how Bushite policies have been such a dramatic failure on national security grounds, we are subjected to balderdash like "Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low" (Obama) and "One of the great tragedies of this Administration is that the President failed to keep this country unified after 9/11" (Clinton). This just makes the Democrats look weak and whiny, and plays into Republican hands. What's so hard about pointing out that Bin Laden is not only alive and kicking, but up to much mischief, and that Bush bears some responsibility?

Update: Josh Marshall nails it.

"Democrats should just hit right back on how President Bush has been helping Osama bin Laden for almost six years. Sounds harsh. But it’s true. Consider the facts. President Bush had bin Laden trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora. But he let bin Laden get away because Bush wanted to focus on Saddam Hussein instead. The president and the White House tried to lie about this during the 2004 election. But since then the evidence has become overwhelming. President Bush decided to let bin Laden get away so he could get ready to attack Saddam Hussein. So pretty much anything bin Laden does from here on out is on President Bush. And how about Iraq? President Bush has screwed things up so badly that he’s created a whole new generation of recruits for bin Laden. He’s created a whole new army for bin Laden. Not by being tough but by being stupid. And by being too much of a coward to admit his mistakes once it was obvious that the occupation of Iraq was helping bin Laden specifically and the jihadist agenda in general. After half a decade, the verdict is pretty clear: President Bush has been the biggest ally Osama bin Laden has. He’s helped bin Laden at pretty much every turn — even if only by his own stupidity, incompetence and cowardice. And when the next big terrorist attack comes, we can thank President Bush for helping make it happen."

Obama Continues to Inspire

Who else today can speak the truth so eloquently, without spin and subterfuge?

"But if the next President can restore the American people’s trust – if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility – then I believe the American people will be ready to see America lead again. They will be ready to show the world that we are not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. That we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with. That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city. That is not who we are."

Amen.

Partial Birth Abortion And Catholic Judges

As was well noted, it was the five Catholic Supreme Court justices (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy) banding together that upheld the ban on partial birth abortions last week. We should all remember what this practice entails: pulling the baby out apart from the head, sticking a pair of scissors into the baby's skull to kill him/her, then using a suction to suck out the brains. As barbaric a procedure as one can possibly imagine. A procedure that the weight of public opinion is against, and that figures like Daniel Patrick Moynihan deemed to close to infanticide for comfort. And yet... the leading Democratic nominees have all criticized this decision. Are they so in the thrall of the abortion lobby that they cannot stand up for what is right, even in this most extreme of cases? Don't they realize that this is why the Catholic vote keeps slipping away?

And please, spare me the specious arguments based on the mother's health. To those making this argument, I would propose the following: how about banning all abortions except when the life of the mother is endangered? We all know how the pro-abortion lobby would react to this proposal. No, it's not about the health of the mother. Shed the pretence.

But this is also no time to pat the Bush administration on the back. True, Roberts and Alito made the right call in this case, but they have not stood up for the dignity of life in other cases (remember Hamden and the Geneva Conventions?). And, as most experts point out, the impact of this decision on the actual incidence of abortions will be negligible, while the carnage in Iraq continues to mount. Thank you indeed, George W. Bush.

But the most appalling reaction of all is the one that pins the blame on the Catholic faith of the aforementioned five justices for this decision. Cartoons are circulating of five Supreme Court justices wearing miters. As this link shows, the ugly anti-Catholic prejudice being generated by some on the left matches the old bigotry on the right portraying Catholics as agents on an insidious papacy. As reported by Mirror of Justice, one of the milder commentators, Geoffrey Stone from the Chicago law school put it as follows:

"What, then, explains this decision? Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are either Protestant or Jewish all voted in accord with settled precedent. It is mortifying to have to point this out. But it is too obvious, and too telling, to ignore."

Incredible. Since when did respect for human life become a value specific to the Catholic faith? Could one not argue that the since the two Jewish justices dissented, there is something inherent in Judaism that supports infanticide? Of course, this would be a despicable and outrageous argument. And yet, when you replace "Judaism" with "Catholicism", common standards of decency simply fall down...

Genocide in Turkey

As noted by Daniel Larison, tomorrow marks the 92nd anniversary of the Turkish genocide against the Armenian people. The goal was clearly the obliteration of the Christian Armenians, textbook genocide. The best estimates are that about a million people died. A fervent form of "Holocaust denial" became entrenched among the Turkish authorities, through the present day. As Larison notes "denialism and Turkish republicanism have unfortunately combined; the hyper-nationalists today are only the most obnoxious of the denialists." In Turkey today, it remains a crime to simply state the historical facts and to even mention the word "genocide". The criminal code forbids "insulting Turkishness." Recently, Hrant Dink, an Armenian Turk, after criticizing Turkey's genocide denial, was prosecuted three times, and eventually assassinated by nationalists.

Now, right-wing culture warriors today will look at this story and paint a stark picture of Islamic aggression against a small helpless Christian community. But this is not accurate. The Armenians lived for centuries under the Ottomans. They may have suffered discrimination and a lack of true religious freedom, but they lived unmolested. No, it was secular nationalism that killed them, the pseudo-religion that exalts the Turkish nation. After all, it was on suspicion of aiding the enemy during the first world war (the Russians) that provoked the massacres. And it is that form of nationalism, dressed in patriotic garb, that can be truly chilling.

Who Cares What George Washington Thought, About Guns And Other Things?

One of the most ludicrous positions in the US constitutional debate is the notion that one must remain wedded to intent of the original framers of the Constitution. In other words, it should not be a living document. I may start to sound like a broken record on this one, but this reflects a wholly Protestant approach, secularized sola scriptura. Catholics, of course, appeal to the unwritten natural law and try to discern what is right from basic principals. Everything stems from the fact that the Word of God is a person, Jesus, and not a mere text. It follows that the starting point is the recognition that every human being is endowed with God-given human dignity that must always be respected.

Now, if this is in accord with written law, fine. If not, then an effort should be made to change the law. The founders accepted slavery. We don't. We have learned that torture is gravely evil. We have come to the realization that the death penalty debases humanity, and should be used only when there are no further options. We continue to declare that abortion is wrong, even though we accept the equality of women because it is an attack on innocent human life. The natural law does not change. We just understand it better.

Today, after the Virginia Tech tragedy, the old debate over gun control has rekindled. Those favoring guns offer a literalist reading of the constitution. Others note that the "right to bear arms" refers only to state militias. But who really cares? Does it make any difference what a group of 18th century Americans thought? The issue before us should be: what best protects the common good, the free availability of guns, or some gun control? The answer seems easy. As I've discussed numerous times before, the gun death rate in the United States is off the charts. Why this is the case is open to debate. Some point to the legacy of popular revolution and the frontier culture, others to the acceptability of violence as a response to problems, others to a popular culture that glorifies violence, and others still to the greater diversity that breeds tensions. But one thing is certain. The free availability of guns is bound to lead to further bloodshed.

Think of the recent tragedy. The young perpetrator of the massacre was clearly mentally ill, seriously so. He was paranoid and delusional, and possessed violent fantasies. These unfortunate souls exist in every country in the world. But in most other countries in the world, they could not so easily come across such deadly weapons that could cause such carnage. Sure, there are other ways to commit mass murder, but they are a lot harder. The counter argument is always some bizarre definition of "freedom", as if freedom is a primary virtue that can never be compromised. In fact, freedom is compromised every day in the service of the common good, and this is equally true in the United States as elsewhere. Examples abound. The freedom to drive a vehicle at any speed, or under the influence of alcohol, is curtailed, and for good reason. Certain drugs are made illegal, again for good reason. On the topic of alcohol, most citizens of the world would regard the ludicrously high drinking age in the United States as an undue restriction on freedom. All but the most extreme libertarians accept the role of the government in regulating behavior in the interest of the common good. Of course, there can be legitimate debate over boundaries. (Hint: the common good encompasses all, not just subgroups such as fellow countrymen. It is separate from the promotion of personal morality).

After the recent tragedy, the world press was united in condemning the liberal gun laws in the United States. The standard reaction of the right was a firm "butt out", tinged with a smug sense of superiority. For America is "free", more "free" than any other country, indeed, the "leader of the free world". Sorry, Europeans are no less "free" than Americans, and certainly do not see themselves so, but they are safer. No, the old "freedom" excuse for scorning gun control is based on an outdated mode of thinking, one that supposes that citizens with guns are the best protection against a coercive state that may abuse its power. Which brings me back to my original point: George Washington and his friends may have good reason for holding such views. We certainly don't. It's high time to adopt a Catholic approach to the natural law, rather than fealty to a dead text.

"Charism of Political Discernment"

A few days back, we saw Michael Novak and Richard John Neuhaus, Bush's favorite Catholics, making a last ditch effort to defend the Iraq war, and a rather feeble one at that. Now is the turn of the third member of the triumvirate, George Weigel. In a First Things essay, Weigel still defends the Iraq war, despite tactical mistakes along the way. It is interesting that Weigel, Novak, and Neuhaus do not seem at all chastened, even when others who supported the war (including the New Republic) have since repented.

In an excellent editorial, Commonweal takes Weigel to task for a position he has held in the past, that the political authorities are in a better position to assess the "morality and wisdom of war" than the bishops, as these officials tend to be "more fully informed about the relevant facts". Thus the charism of political discernment! In his latest essay, though, Weigel is strangely silent on the "charism" argument. This is hardly surprising, given how disastrous the Bush administration has been, displaying the polar opposite of a political discernment charism. It would be funny if it were not so tragic. But the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways. The experience under the Bush administration has shown clearly that Weigel's argument is deeply flawed. It was the thin sheet he used to hide his ideological preferences behind some Catholic sounding catchphrases, and it has been abruptly whisked away, rendering him naked and rather unattractive at that.

Perhaps people should have listened to the bishops more closely then, as they should have listened to the last Pope Benedict during the first world war. As Commonweal puts it, "For a group that is supposed to lack the charism to make sound judgments about war and peace, the bishops have acquitted themselves far better than their critics." Indeed.

The Bush Bubble, Defined

We all know about the bubble. Sycophantic insiders. Pre-screened audiences. Isolation from reality. But it's rare to see a legal argument admitting the existence of, and defending, the Bush bubble. The case centers around the "Denver Three", Denver residents who obtained tickets from their Republican congressman to attend a Bush speech in 2005. One of the "loyal Bushies" on duty noticed a "no blood for oil" bumper sticker on their car, and threw them out, impersonating Secret Service agents in the process (a crime, by the way). As noted by the Carpetbagger Report, "this was an example of American citizens getting escorted out of a public event, dealing with a public policy issue, on public property, featuring public officials, because someone didn’t like their bumper sticker." Charming. The evictees sued. And how did the Bushies respond? With this statement: "The president’s right to control his own message includes the right to exclude people expressing discordant viewpoints from the audience." There you have it, the bubble...

Gun Nuts Exploit Tragedy

As I write this, I'm following the horrible story of the gun violence in Virginia Tech University, where a gunman brutally murdered 32 people today. We all know that the United States has some of the highest gun-related deaths in the world. What can we do about it? Well, if you are a gun nut like Glenn Reynolds, you could argue that the problem was the gun ban on campus. He notes that a bill to allow students carry handguns on campus was shot down and concludes "Had the bill passed, things might have turned out differently". At times like this, I simply think that the right is criminally insane. Think about it. A campus where every drunken frat boy has a handgun in his pocket. Wonderful. By this logic, Fallujah and Ramada must be some of the safest cities in the world...

What is the "National Catholic Prayer Breakfast" Anyway?

Its mission statement:

"We have created the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in response to the call of Pope John Paul the Great for a "New Evangelization, new in order, methods and expression." We gather from across the United States of America for worship and fellowship. We gather to thank Our Lord for his abundant blessings upon this Land. We reaffirm our faith in Him and renew our dedication to this great Republic. We commit ourselves to providing for our brothers and sisters who are the most vulnerable in society, and we commit our country to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

Look at the highlighted sentence. Doesn't that mix religion and nationalism? Doesn't Catholic mean universal, going beyond the confines of a particular country? And isn't there something a little discomforting about equating faith in God and "this great Republic" in the same sentence?

Bush Mocks Catholic Teaching

At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast this morning, Bush made the following comments:

"Renewing the promise of America begins with upholding the dignity of human life. In our day, there is a temptation to manipulate life in ways that do not respect the humanity of the person. When that happens, the most vulnerable among us can be valued for their utility to others -- instead of their own inherent worth. We must continue to work for a culture of life -- where the strong protect the weak, and where we recognize in every human life the image of our Creator."

Of course, he enunciates quite clearly the way Catholics view the culture of life, founded on God-given human dignity. What is distressing is that his policies bear so little relationship to such a guiding philosophy, and are often in stark contrast to Catholic teaching.

The culture of life. What about torturing people? What about imprisonment without charge? What about deportation in order to be tortured? What about rushing to war on a tissue of lies? What about elevating consequentialism as an over-arching principle? What making the world a more dangerous place? What about promoting a narrow nationalism? What about granting tax cuts to the super-rich, while cutting medicaid and food stamps? What about executing people at a brisk rate, denying them the proper legal defense, and then mocking pleas for clemency?

Whatever philosophy guides Bush, it is not Catholic. Just remember, Jesus reserved his harshest words for those who used religion for political reasons (the "hypocrites").

Lessons from Malawi

As the bishops in Zimbabwe take a stand against Robert Mugabe's entrenched thugocracy, dubbing it "racist, corrupt and lawless", John Allen brings our attention to the role of the Catholic bishops in promoting change in Malawi, something he refers to as the "most remarkable, if largely untold, political interventions of the Catholic church in the 20th century." Malawi under Hastings Banda was a rather unpleasant place. A megalomaniac, Banda claimed personal ownership of the whole economy, and decreed that pictures of himself be placed in every office (and, even more bizarrely, insisted his image be broadcast before all movies). Critics were arrested, and often tortured and killed. Censorship was the norm, and the intelligence service was feared. And while millions lived in dire poverty, Banda secreted away his own millions. But Banda also maintained warm relations with apartheid-era South Africa, which led Reagan and Thatcher to turn a blind eye to his mis-rule.

In 1992, the Catholic bishops issued a stinging pastoral letter that was read in every single church. In it, they denounced income inequality, injustice, human rights abuse, corruption, nepotism, and the lack of free speech. In the words of the letter:

"We cannot turn a blind eye to our people's experiences of unfairness or injustice.. These are our brothers and sisters who are in prison without knowing what they are charged with, or when their case will be heard.. No one person can claim to have a monopoly on truth or wisdom... Nobody should have to suffer for living up to their convictions. We can only regret that this has not always been the case in our country."

The result was electrifying. People went crazy at Mass, and church attendance soared. The government attempted to crack down, and the cabinet even debated murdering the bishops. But the tidal wave could not be stopped. People started standing up to the security forces. Students began protesting. By 1994, Banda was gone. An inspiring story!

Bilal Hussein

Andrew Sullivan raises the issue of Bilal Hussein, a press photographer in American custody without charge for about a year. In fact, the Bush administration refuses to bring charges; in fact, the accusations seemed to change "even in the course of a single press cycle". Even worse, "the U.S. Forces insist that they have secret charges which, in the manner of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial they are unwilling to present to Bilal Hussein". The manifold "suspicions" raised by military spokespeople have been exposed as false.

Who, then, is Bilal Hussein? Hussein was part of an Associated Press (AP) team of photographers that won a Pulitzer prize for coverage of the war in Fallujah in 2005. This sheds some light on a possible reason for Hussein's incarceration. The Pentagon was enraged by some pictures he took of fighting in the Al-Anbar province, pictures that disputed the established storyline. In fact, the administration was irked that these AP photographers won a prize in the first place. So the message is clear: toe the line on Iraq, or else...

Sadly, there is precedent. During the early stages of the war, the U.S. bombed Al Jazeera headquarters in Baghdad, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. It had done the same thing in Kabul, destroying the building. Coincidence? Hardly. Remember the leaked memo, describing how Tony Blair had tried to talk Bush out of bombing Al Jazeera? Of course, the Bush administration denied it, but the British government pursued charges against two civil servants under the Official Secrets Act for leaking the document.

No More Double Standards, Please

Frankly, I'm sick of the media circus over the Imus psuedo-controversy. I don't care about radio "shock-jocks" and I don't care about basketball. I do care about hypocrisy, however, and what I don't understand is why one fool who makes racist comments is subjected to such vilification while right-wing blowhwards use this kind of language every day of the week. Yet again, the standards of civilized discourse tend not to apply to this sub-group. Media Matters does some sterling work sifting through some of the more outrageous statements against women and minorities from the likes of Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and John Gibson. Follow the link. My personal favorities: Michael Savage calling for genocide in southern Lebanon, Rush Limbaugh making fun of torture, and Neal Boortz advising Katrina victims to take up prostitution for a living.

Benedict Reflects on Evolution

Writing in a new book, the pope states that neither a theory of creation that makes a mockery of science nor a theory of evolution that eschews any role for the Creator is acceptable. In his words:

"The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science."

The pope did not endorse intelligent design, which is surely a disappointment to the American evangelical right eager for a Vatican ally on this issue. As I noted recently, there is a need to keep separate "physics" and "metaphysics" and let not the experts in one domain claim knowledge over the other. Religious believers should stay out of the scientific debate. It is important to note that "intelligent design" does not merely postulate that God is the Creator of everything out of nothing and guides all of creation (sensible), but encroaches on scientific territory by holding that organisms appeared simultaneously (not so sensible). Likewise, the claim of some neo-Darwinists that evolution proves the non-existence of God is equally ludicrous, as they step rather indelicately beyond science and into theological speculation. As the pope says "I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science."

Remember, this is a key theme of Benedict's, that faith and reason are not at loggerheads.

(Tip: Rocco Palmo.)

Life is Better Than Under Saddam, Right?

Not according to Shlemon Warduni, auxiliary bishop of Baghdad. Last year, and interviewer asked about whether life was just as bad as under Saddam. The bishop cut him off:

"No, in no way. The comparison won’t hold up, it’s not even worth suggesting. Under Saddam there was dictatorship, the wars… but the people lived fairly well. Today there is the total insecurity, one can’t be sure in the morning of coming home in the evening, it seems absurd but that’s how it is. I can testify to it in person, if you’ll believe it."

Hmm, I wonder if Michael Novak is as disappointed with him as he was with the pope. What an ungrateful cleric, unwilling to thank his real Messiah, George W. Bush, for bestowing the freely-given gift of freedom and redemption! Just another euro-weenie trying to "stick it to the Americans". Actually, maybe Novak needs to live in Iraq to wallow in the glory himself...

(Tip: Evangelical Catholicism.)

Banana Republic Watch

Josh Marshall has been at the vanguard of the US attorneys story, following its nefarious twists and turns and sniffing out conspiracies theories that, however unlikely, always turn out to have a kernel of truth. Today, he focuses on the real story behind the story: the Rovian voter suppression machine. He starts by noting a New York Times story that shows precious little evidence of voter fraud, despite the best efforts of the Republican noise machine to play up the issue over the past few years. Last year, there were only 86 convictions for voter fraud, and most of these were the result of simple mistakes. Possibly the most tragic case is that of Usman Ali, a Pakistani immigrant who filled out a voter registration form alongside the other forms he was handed by a brusque official at the DMV while renewing his driving license. For this "crime", he was deported to Pakistan. Charming.

This strategy was orchestrated by the Rovian machine, with the backing of the Republican National Committee. But what did they hope to accomplish? Again, Marshall is pretty clear:

"Republican party officials and elected officials use bogus claims of vote fraud to do three things: 1) to stymie voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in poor and minority neighborhoods, 2) purge voter rolls of legitimate voters and 3) institute voter ID laws aimed at making it harder for low-income and minority voters to vote."

In other words, it's all about keeping potential Democrats away from the polls. Remember those stories of posters plastered around black neighborhoods giving the wrong day to vote? Remember the stories of too few voting machines in minority areas, along with surpluses in Republican-leaning enclaves? Remember the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal, in which Republicans were indicted for deliberately sabotaging the Democrat's get-out-the-vote campaign? And remember John Thune's narrow victory over Tom Daschle in South Dakota, that came on the back of massive intimidation of native American voters as Republicans harped on and on about voter fraud on the reservations? And, of course, who can forget the ur-scandal that opened the eyes of Republicans to the voter suppression potential, the 2000 voter debacle in Florida?

So, this strategy works. But the Republicans need compliant legal officials to keep pressing these bogus claims. And, as Marshall diligently points out, the US attorneys scandal leads back directly this strategy. As he puts it:

"Only most of the relatively non-partisan and professional US Attorneys simply didn't find any actual fraud. Choosing not to indict people on bogus charges got at least two of the US Attorneys (Iglesias and McKay) fired. And we are seeing evidence that others may have been nudged out less directly for the same reasons. In turn they've been replaced by a new crop of highly-political party operative prosecutors who, in the gentle wording of the Times, "may not be so reticent" about issuing indictments against people who have committed technical voting infractions with no intent to cast a fraudulent ballot."

Welcome to the Banana Republic...

Bertone Slams Media

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone recently expressed frustration with the media's obsession with Church sexual teaching, at the expense of everything else. He noted:

"We face an extremely grave problem. The church's messages are subject to a type of manipulation and falsification by some western media...I see a fixation by some journalists on moral topics, such as abortion and homosexual unions, which are certainly important issues but absolutely do not constitute the thinking and work of the church...Why this deafening silence? We have to say the press does not write much about the social and charity work of thousands of Catholic organisations around the world."

Of course, it's not just gays and sex. To be fair, the media is quite capable of bringing up a diverse range of topics, such as the Inquisition, Galileo, sex abuse, and the Crusades. Oh, and how women are ill-treated in Catholicism, but apparently not at all (judging from media attention) in Islam or orthodox Judaism. Fair and balanced indeed!

The Democratic Party and Christianity, Again

Why is it that the Democratic leadership refuses to accord the respect to Christianity that it accords to other religions?

Here is Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean's Easter message:

“Easter Sunday is a joyful celebration. The holiday represents peace, redemption and renewal, a theme which brings hope to people of all faiths. During this time Christians are called to remember who they are as people of faith, and that even the greatest of evils will not have the last word. It is also a time to reflect upon and be in solidarity with those who are persecuted and suffering among us. We should also use this time to honor those who continue to make incredible sacrifices for us, including our brave men and women in the armed forces serving overseas during this holiday. I would like to wish all those celebrating around the world this Sunday, a joyous Easter.”

What's missing? Any reference to the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, the whole point of the Easter celebration. Contrast this with the statement Howard Dean released for Passover:

"At sundown tonight, Jews around the world will begin celebrating Passover, a holiday that symbolizes the true blessing of freedom. For the next week the enslavement of the Jewish people in Egypt, their persecution and suffering and their eventual redemption will be remembered."

A little different, no? And they wonder why Christians flock to Republicans, in spite of policies that (to put it mildly) frequently deviate from Christian principles.... Will they ever learn?

(Tip: Andrew Sullivan).

Usual Suspects Attack Benedict

With Benedict gaining more and more respect from previous critics on the left, it seems that the most trenchant criticism these days comes from the American right, especially when he touches on issues of war and peace. Recently, in his Easter Urbi Et Orbi address, he noted the following: "the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees". This "nothing positive comes from Iraq" provoked the ire of Bush's Catholic cheerleaders, Michael Novak and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

Here is what Novak had to say (in the pro-torture National Review):

"Benedict XVI's Easter Sunday remarks in St Peter Square hit a low point, I would think. He said that "nothing positive comes from Iraq." This is a very skewed report on the realities on the ground. But it might mean that the message the Pope wanted to convey is that of the American Left: 'Whatever the good or the bad achievements, it is time to get out.' In other words, not an accurate description, but a prescription for the near future.... [These words] sounded like a standard European view of reality — at least of those Europeans who have always disagreed with the American war aims, and now that things have become difficult and costly want to stick it to the Americans."

And Neuhaus:

"It is worth keeping in mind that in 2003 all the countries with developed intelligence services agreed that Saddam Hussein had or was quickly developing weapons of mass destruction that he intended to use in aggressive war.... It is further recognized by almost everybody that the current strategy led by General David Petraeus is a last effort to turn that situation around... I am impressed by the reporters and informed observers who have in recent weeks offered tentative but hopeful judgments about the success of the Petraeus strategy.... Pope Benedict is not so impressed. Catholics in particular pay close and respectful attention to the words of the pope, also when he is offering only his own prudential judgment with respect to this or that world problem. Admittedly, it is galling when Catholics and others who are usually blithely indifferent to church teaching seize upon a papal opinion with which they agree and, suddenly becoming hyper-infallibilists, elevate it to dogmatic status.... I hope he is wrong about there being nothing positive in what is happening in Iraq."

What strikes me most about these statements is the hint of desperation. After throwing in their lot with the Bush administration for so long, they find it hard to jump ship at such a late stage. Neuhaus is left is hoping against hope that the so-called surge will succeed, and repeating old lies about the whole world believing in the Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (it would ill-behoove a priest to admit that his culture war Bush and Cheney lied to go to war). There is also a tone of irritation. Neuhaus is angered by the notion that a man who prides himself on calling others to task for insufficient orthodoxy now finds himself on the other end of the stick. Novak is less concerned with theology than with the secular ideology he holds dearly, the Calvinist-inspired American exceptionalism that sees God giving the United States a divine mandate to remake the world in its own image (and getting rid of the "bad guys" in the process). Anybody who criticizes this is trying to "stick it to the Americans". It's sad, really, these guys just cannot let go. But that's what happens when you put nationalism instead of universalism, country ahead of God, expediency ahead of principle.