News Commentary in Time of Plague: 43 Pages of Obituaries in Houston Today (and the Role Many US Christians Are Playing in the Pandemic)

OUR LOCAL PAPER: The Houston Chronicle
obituary section was 43 pages today.

Let that sink in.

— Rogelio Garcia Lawyer (@LawyerRogelio) July 13, 2020

(P.S. As Newsweek reports, this is a standalone section of obituaries for the year up to now. Read the Newsweek report, and you'll see a lot of commenters on social media are stating that it's likely a high percentage of those deaths are Covid deaths.)

"Public Health Train Wreck in Slow Motion" in US: Where's the Leadership? Where Are the Pro-Life White Christians Who Set This in Motion?

Teresa Hanafin in today's "Fast Forward" from Boston Globe: 

[A]s Dr. David Blumenthal, president of The Commonwealth Fund, put it, the coronavirus pandemic in the United States is like watching a "public health train wreck in slow motion." And the Choo-Choo-in-Chief is at the controls, either completely befuddled or completely callous. Take your pick.

As Churches Re-Open Across US, CDC Issues Report on Arkansas Church in Which a COVID Cluster Spread into Wider Community

In the current pandemic, churches and church gatherings have proven repeatedly to be a perfect petri dish for spread of coronavirus infection. Churches within which infection begins to circulate then bring the infection into the wider community. Yet many Americans continue clamoring for churches to be re-opened even as medical officials urge caution, and. as they clamor, they want to weaponize the pandemic with claims that shutting churches down is an attack on religion.

Some Churches Holding Palm Sunday Services in States Across US: Reuters' Documentation, April 5, 2020

Editorial Board: A response to "We Are An Easter People"

While clearly a cri de coeur from those who, like we, desperately miss the sacraments, we strongly believe that much of what the message advocates is ill advised and, worse, could cause great harm.https://t.co/4BqWnSPzuy pic.twitter.com/blmWkxY2H7

— Our Sunday Visitor (@OSV) April 4, 2020

Despite huge red flags waved in front of their unbelieving faces, there are still people who want to maintain that religious gatherings are not being held in the US in defiance of stay-at-home orders, since everyone they know is participating in religous gatherings online. These folks remind me very much of an elderly German woman I saw interviewed in a documentary this week who vowed that, no, sir, no one was murdered during the Holocaust, that the gas chambers and crematoria were fake news — and as she spoke, the camera panned to actual footage of the crematoria stuffed with ashes and bones, and actual photos of people who had been shoved into mass graves after they were shot by the Nazis.

Southern Baptist Abuse Report, Next Installment: "Preying on Teens"

The third installment in the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation of abuse in Southern Baptist churches is out today. It's entitled "Preying on teens: More than 100 Southern Baptist youth pastors convicted or charged in sex crimes." An excerpt:

Southern Baptist Abuse Report, Next Installment: "Offend, Then Repeat"

The next installment in the Houston Chronicle (and San Antonio Express-News) ground-breaking report on abuse within Southern Baptist churches and institutions has just come out. It's entitled "Offend, then repeat":

Houston Chronicle Invites Readers to Share Stories of Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches: My Commentary

Houston Chronicle is not playing, with its exhaustive investigation of abuse within Southern Baptist churches. On a page attached to its exposé report yesterday, the Chronicle invites readers to reply directly via an online form and share their own experiences of abuse in Southern Baptist churches with the Chronicle reporting team:

Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock Updates List of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors

This is another footnote to my posting two days ago entitled "As Catholic Dioceses Release Lists of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors, Important Things to Watch for: The Case of Arkansas." In that posting, I told you that Father Bede Mitchell, OSB, of Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas, was listed by the Fort Worth diocese in its recent list of priests credibly accused of abuse of minors, but was not listed on the list of credibly accused priests released by the diocese of Little Rock last year.

As Catholic Dioceses Release Lists of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors, Important Things to Watch for: The Case of Arkansas

As more and more U.S. Catholic dioceses — but not the diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, which remains "one of the least transparent" dioceses in the nation — release names of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors, I am following those lists to see if I spot names of priests with connections to my diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm doing this, in part, because I think it's important that we inform ourselves of what's happening in our own back yard as we talk about bigger problems that manifest themselves in more than one place in the world. I also want to note that others who are monitoring these lists have been very generous in pointing me to important Arkansas-themed information in them: this is not a project I'm undertaking all on my own, but a collaborative one.

Abuse of Vulnerable People and Churches: Recent Reports, from Baptists to Nuns Raped by Bishops and Priests to Jesuits to a German Princess Saving the Church

This is a collection of reports on the abuse situation as it is unfolding in various churches now. These are all recent statements, and not by any means a representative report on all that is happening on the sexual abuse front in religious groups right now. Stories are breaking on that front fast and furious — this is only my own selection of reports that have drawn my attention recently, for reasons that will be apparent as you read:

Breaking News: Authorities Raid Offices of Galveston-Houston Catholic Archdiocese

A significant footnote to what I posted earlier today about how Catholic pastoral leaders have moved beyond the point of no return with the abuse horror show: this morning, criminal authorities are raiding the offices of the Catholic diocese of Galveston-Houston. According to news reports, they are looking for the secret archives that canon law mandates dioceses keep regarding abuse allegations.

This is a highly significant story because this is the diocese of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, current president of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference. As the news report at the head of the posting states, this is also unprecedented action in the U.S.

Point of no return, indeed.

Strange Story from Fort Worth Diocese: Is Public Shaming of Priests Thought to Be Gay What We Can Look Forward to in Wake of McCarrick Story?

How odd that this ‘Open Letter from Young Catholics’ re McCarrick doesn’t once mention the pope under whose watch he was seamlessly promoted. It’s not about what “Pope Francis knew” — McCarrick was long retired by 2013 — but StJPII (1978-2005). https://t.co/d0ZVjj0Zx5

— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) August 8, 2018

As Austen Ivereigh points out, the "open letter from young Catholics" who are seeking to resurrect the lavender mafia slur of priests in the wake of the McCarrick story (the letter does not use that term, but uses all the buzzwords connected to that slur) does not once mention Saint John Paul the Great, who made McCarrick a cardinal after the Vatican knew McCarrick's story, but focuses, instead, on Pope Francis, stating,

Austin Serial Bomber Mark Anthony Conditt, a Quiet Home-Schooled White Evangelical Boy from a "Loving" and "Good Family"

Here's a photo of the family of Austin, Texas, serial bomber Mark Anthony Conditt, from Instagram by way of this Daily Mail article.* "Just a 'neighborhood kid' from a good family," a neighbor states. Neighbors also indicate (the last link to a Houston Chronicle article by Keri Blakinger, Samantha Ketterer, and Alejandra Matos is again my source for this information) that the family hosted "large religious gatherings" at its home on Sundays, in the house in which it home-schooled all its children:

Enough with the Thoughts and Prayers: A Twitter Thread in Response to Texas Mass Shooting

No more thoughts and prayers.

I've had enough.

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) November 6, 2017

Gay Student Becomes Student Body President at Texas A&M, Opponent Claims Persecution Because He Is a "Heterosexual, White, Christian Male": Points to Consider

As Sam King explains in an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, last week, the energy secretary of the U.S., Rick Perry, took the astonishing step of issuing a statement about the election of a study body president at Texas A&M University. Perry is angry that an openly gay young man, Bobby Brooks, was elected president of the A&M student body, when the candidate who got the most votes in this election, Robert McIntosh, was disqualified by the student government court on grounds that he had violated strict rules at the university regarding disclosure of campaign expenses. 

Conversations in the Age of Trump: Cousins, Guns, Church, and Blood-Thirsty Idols

Conversations in the age of Trump:

Cousin:

Guns make us safer.

Telling My Story as LDS Church Refuses Baptism to Children of Gay Couples, and Houston and Kentucky Demonstrate Continued Political Power of Gay-Baiting

Dear friends, I'm posting today, despite my fast from posting, because — well — there's something I'd like to say! And here it is:

The Confederate Flag: With One Great-Grandfather Who Was a CSA Soldier and Three Others Who Had Brothers in the CSA, I Could Not Be Happier to See It Come Down

To repeat myself: one of my great-grandfathers was a Confederate soldier in Alabama, and my other three great-grandfathers in Louisiana and Arkansas all had brothers who served in the Confederate army. And I could not be happier to see the racist Confederate battle flag taken down from public buildings and now recognized for what it always was and remains — a symbol of white supremacy.

Jesuit Education and the "Band of Brothers" Back in the News: University of Oklahoma Race-Baiting Incident Has Link to Jesuit High School

Racism is alive at The University of Oklahoma. @President_Boren pic.twitter.com/eAvnPD8jxA
— Unheard (@OU_Unheard) March 8, 2015

(The video above is from an 8 March 2015 tweet of the University of Oklahoma group Unheard: warning — OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE).

Remember that posting I wrote at the end of January? It talked about how commentators on Pope Francis as a reformer seem oblivious to what a mixed bag his Jesuit heritage is, and, in particular, to the militarism with its attendant misogyny woven through much of that heritage. I told you a story about a graduation Steve and I attended in 2003 at a Jesuit high school in Texas from which the son of one of my cousins was graduating.

Plano, Texas, Continues to Protect LGBT Citizens from Discrimination; Catholic News Service Responds by Circulating Report of Liberty Institute That Christians Are Persecuted

Can Catholic News Service undercut its credibility any more decisively as a bona fide journalistic venture? I doubt it. Not when it's willing to become a propaganda organ for the likes of Liberty Institute in Plano, Texas.