We're for Religious Liberty: Rally to Be Held June 9 in Little Rock in Support of Judge Wendell Griffen

I think most readers of this blog are not in Arkansas or nearby states. But on the off chance that there are readers of Bilgrimage in my local area about whom I don't know, or readers of this blog who have friends in Arkansas or nearby areas who might be interested in this event, I wanted to share news about it:

Move to Impeach Judge Wendell Griffen: "Latest Effort to Punish a Judge, a Black Judge . . . with Whom the White Power Structure in Arkansas Disagrees"

I thought I'd update you today on what's happening with my friend Judge (and Reverend) Wendell Griffen right now. As his recent Democracy Now! interview with Amy Goodman and Juan González reports, a move is afoot to have him impeached as a member of the Arkansas judiciary due to his outspoken opposition — as a Christian pastor — to the death penalty. On Good Friday, he took part in a protest against the death penalty organized by the church he pastors, New Millennium Baptist church in Little Rock, and the impeachment proceedings are due to his participation in that protest.

White Christian Right "Over the Moon" About Trump Presidency: News Worth Noting Today

#Christian pic.twitter.com/3ZA6pRFGJS

— Ani Sangye (@SangyeH) April 26, 2017

Some "in the news" items I've noticed in the last day or so, which have to do with matters we often discuss here, and to which I want to draw your attention:

Tipping Over into Something "So Dark, So Real, So Evil That There Was Really No Precedent for It in Terms of Its All-Encompassing Possibilities for Death"

From the news and news commentary in the past day or so: read these snippets as a unified narrative, and the question arises, If I had to write a plot description for this narrative, what would that plot description say? What might it say about the role religion is playing in tipping the United States over into unimagined possibilities of death, destruction, and violence at this point in history? How does a "pro-life" Christianity end up dealing death, and doing so proudly and defiantly? 

In Arkansas, the Beginning of "Rapid-Fire Flurry of Executions Unprecedented in Modern U.S. History": Why All Americans Should Care

The attorney representing Ledell Lee, the first man put to death in the current killing spree of Arkansas GOP Governor Asa Hutchinson, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, and the Arkansas Supreme Court, posted a statement yesterday on Facebook about Ledell Lee's final hours. Attorney Lee Short writes (by way of Leslie Newell Peacock), 

A Twitter Conversation: "Church That Does Not Defend Humanity of LGBT People Is Not Credible When It Speaks About the Value of Life"

A church that does not defend humanity of LGBT people is not credible when it speaks about the value of life. Period. https://t.co/v0csNLhpFx

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) April 21, 2017

The tweet above is my response to the next tweet below. My tweet in response to Father Andrew Hart then produced a Twitter conversation that some readers (and perhaps Father Hart himself) may regard as raucous. It's there on Twitter, in case anyone wants to find and read it. 

As Arkansas Rushes to Execute 8 People in 11 Days, Remember Who Stands Behind Trump: White "Pro-Life" Evangelicals

Trump approval ratings among...
White evangelical Prot 78%
White mainline Prot 51%
Catholic 42%
Unaffiliated 23%https://t.co/pqysd7lAfo

— PewResearch Religion (@PewReligion) April 17, 2017

Remember, as the state of Arkansas rushes to kill 8 people in 11 days because our killing drugs are about to go stale:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "Devout Catholic for Donald Trump!" "I Don't Care What the Tradition Says or Does Not Say"

Meet Patsy, a self-described devout Catholic for Donald Trump! Patsy is also a self-described "frightened person" who supports Mr. Trump because, as she (or is it he?) admits, Mr. Trump plays to Patsy's fears. As Patsy repeatedly explains when she comments at discussion threads of National Catholic Reporter, she loves Mr. Trump because he will "destroy our enemies" (and here).

Remembering Mario Cuomo: Issue That Above All Others Defines His Legacy Was Opposition to Death Penalty

John Nichols's eulogy for Mario Cuomo at The Nation is the best I've yet read. I like how Nichols gets that Cuomo's political vision was deeply informed by a Catholic vision of the common good on which Cuomo continued to insist even as his political party, at a national level and under several popular Democratic presidents, moved decisively to the "center" (that is, to the right) and endorsed neoliberal socioeconomic ideas that left working- and even middle-class Americans out in the cold.

A Nation Awash in Violence Admits to Torture: "We Have Lost Forever the Right to Moral Leadership"

Abu Ghraib

• We are approaching the second anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, an event to which the U.S. has responded, at an official level, by doing . . . absolutely nothing at all.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "I Wonder What Justice Scalia Has to Say Now"

Because isn't he not only a Catholic, but one who frequently claims that his Catholic values infuse everything he does as a Supreme Court justice — and who has argued that Christian values must infuse capitalistic societies if those societies are to succeed? Since capitalism is more Christian than socialism — or so he claims . . . . 

Death Penalty in News: New Evidence Exonerates Men for Whom Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Promoted Death Penalty

As the New York Times notes today, a judicial development in North Carolina this week provides a "textbook example" of much that is broken in the American justice system, as well as more evidence that 'the death penalty is irretrievably flawed as well as immoral." The judicial development: as Ed Mazza reports (along with Jonathan Drew) at Huffington Post, on Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Leon Sasser overturned the conviction of Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, his half-brother, for the rape and murder of Sabrina Buie in Robeson County, North Carolina, in 1983.

A Reader Writes: "I Wonder WHY the Murder Rate Is Higher in States That Allow Execution?"

Yesterday, in response to my posting about the botched (and barbaric) execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma several days ago, a_leah asked, "I'm opposed to capital punishment anyway, but I wonder WHY the murder rate is higher in states that allow execution?" I think that's a good question, one well worth pursuing: why is it that the murder rate is frequently higher in the U.S. in states that practice capital punishment, while it's lower in states that outlaw capital punishment? As it's lower in many nations that have abolished capital punishment, while higher in many nations that still permit the death penalty . . . ?

Brief Takes from Week's News: Oklahoma and "The Very Definition of Cruel and Unusual Punishment"

Brief takes from commentary in the past several days on the horrifying botched execution in Oklahoma:

My Book Is Published--Fiat Flux: The Writings of Wilson R. Bachelor, Nineteenth-Century Country Doctor and Philosopher

At the risk of appearing immodest, I do want to announce that my book Fiat Flux: The Writings of Wilson R. Bachelor, Nineteenth-Century Country Doctor and Philosopher, has just been published. University of Arkansas Press kindly sent me a copy hot off the press by special delivery yesterday morning, and I have to say, it looks good to me. (But as my father always responded when my mother admired her children, "Darling, every crow thinks her chick's the blackest").

Maureen Dowd on Scalia (and U.S. Catholic Bishops) and Cooperation in Evil

Justice Scalia and Cardinal Wuerl of D.C., Red Mass, 2008

Maureen Dowd writes about Supreme Court justice Scalia's defense of capital punishment in a speech he delivered recently at Duquesne University, and about the double standard the U.S. Catholic bishops employ in promoting Catholic moral values in the public square:

In Catholic News: Scalia Talks Moral Truths, Benedict Calls German Church to Poverty

In Catholic news: Supreme Court justice (and right-wing Catholic) Antonin Scalia has made the news several times the past week, by addressing issues including

1. discrimination against gays on Catholic campuses (he's for it)

2. abolition of the death penalty (against).

U.S. Catholic Theologians Speak Out vs. Death Penalty

Important news to note this week: a group of Catholic theologians (the initial number was around 150, but the list of signatories is said to be growing daily) have issued a call for the eradication of the death penalty in the U.S.  The theologians' statement is at the Catholic Moral Theology blog.