"Where is the Sense of Decency? What Does It Profit a Great Nation to Conquer the World, Only to Lose Its Soul?" — The Legacy of John Lewis

This interview with Congressman John Lewis -- in front of a live audience in Kentucky in October 2013 -- was one of the most memorable and moving experiences of my professional life.

It feels just impossible to lose him at a time when we need him so much.https://t.co/QO2kEwLVvz

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) July 18, 2020

Again, Case Study from Minnesota: Bishops Playing Culture-War Games Cannot Effectively Address Real, Pressing Problems Like Racism

On 23 May, I posted a piece here entitled "As US President Demands That Churches Re-Open, Case Study from Minnesota." That posting noted the intent of the Catholic bishops of Minnesota to "defy" the stay-at-home orders of the state's governor and re-open churches. The word "defy" is used in the headline of a 20 May MPR article about this story to which I linked on 23 May.

Reaping the Whirlwind: America Now Confronts the Reality of Its 2016 Election

People Can Only Bear So Much Injustice Before Lashing Out via @thenation https://t.co/qevqJ0pvk4

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) May 30, 2020

Jack Holmes, "This CNN Crew's Arrest in Minneapolis Is More Than a Mistake":

Imagine what they're capable of when they're not live on national television. 

My Reflections as Minnesota and Vermont Declare Grocery Clerks Emergency Workers

Hell yeah, now make it national https://t.co/XEad0wx53j

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) March 19, 2020

The people putting their lives on the line right now to serve the rest of us are medical personnel and also grocery store workers and people delivering goods in trucks all over the country. The latter two groups are often significantly underpaid and have few or no benefits, including paid sick leave.

"You Served Your Tour with Valor": Honoring Veterans of the African-American Struggle for Justice and Dignity

Today is the U.S. Veterans' Day holiday, and as tributes to this or that family member who has been in the military pop up in my social media feed, I'm thinking of a tribute my friend Wendell Griffen posted on his blog a number of days back to an Arkansas civil rights attorney and state representative, John W. Walker. John Walker died 28 October, and Wendell eulogized him at his funeral in Little Rock on 1 November.

Ruth Krall, Looking Slant: Oppressive Ideologies and Belief Systems

Ebola: Transporting a Sick Child to a Care Facility (1)

The essay by Ruth Krall that follows below is the fourth in a series of essays entitled "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice," which I've had the honor to publish on Bilgrimage in the past weeks. The first essay in this series appeared in two installments, here and here. The second appeared in another two installments, here and here. The third essay is here. As Ruth's introduction to the essay below notes, it follows on her three preceding essays, which hypothesize the endemic natural of religious and spiritual leader sexual abuse of followers by asking what might be the role played by various ideologies in establishing institutional climates that faciliate abuse and then cover it up. As with some of Ruth's previous essays in this series, I'm posting this one in two parts: part one is below.

Margaret Renkl on Obligation of Catholics to Defend Their LGBTQ Brothers and Sisters — Even Against Archbishops

Margaret Renkl, "How to Defy the Catholic Church: Believers have a spiritual obligation to defend their L.G.B.T.Q. brothers and sisters, even against archbishops":

Despite the archbishop's words [i.e., Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis addressing his orders to two Catholic schools to fire gay employees], his behavior does look very much like a witch hunt. He has apparently not directed Catholic school officials to fire teachers who practice birth control or divorced teachers who remarry without benefit of a church annulment. In calling for the dismissal of all teachers who fail to exemplify every teaching of the Catholic church, the "categories of people you would need to fire'"would amount to "a huge list," the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at America Magazine, told The Times. Persecuting teachers in same-sex marriages is Archbishop Thompson's specific focus. … 

Catholics today don't hear much about the primacy of an informed conscience because many priests take the position that a conscience at odds with the church is by definition insufficiently informed. But the primacy of an informed conscience belongs as deeply to church tradition as the current brand of pastoral authoritarianism does. It is time for Catholics to remember it again and stand up for their brothers and sisters in same-sex marriages, as Brebeuf Jesuit has done, even if it means defying the teaching of their own imperfect church.

Everybody Has a Story: Updating You on Recent Events in My Husband Steve's and My Life

Weeks back, I alluded to a hard patch through which Steve and I have been walking, and told you readers of Bilgrimage that I would say more about this when the time was ripe. I am now free to talk. I shared the following statement on Facebook yesterday. I feel a certain ambivalance about making this story public, and I think the ambivalence arises from my concern that I not target the individuals who created this hard patch for Steve and me.

John Gehring on Why Catholic Bishops Need a Year of Abstinence on Preaching about Sexuality

John Gehring, "Why Catholic bishops need a year of abstinence on preaching about sexuality":

This Week's Triptych: One Panel, High Times in Jerusalem; Opposite Panel, People Shot Down Like Dogs; In the Middle, White Evangelicals Jubilating

Left: #Jerusalem
Right: #Gaza

(Photos taken at the same time this afternoon) pic.twitter.com/8ZerjxRq3A

— Patrick Galey (@patrickgaley) May 14, 2018

A man who would not know religion or faith if they bowled him down is permitting a dwindling minority of American citizens — white evangelicals — to drive policy that affects the entire world. He's permitting that dwindling minority to impose its peculiar, eccentric biblical ideas on the entire world, destabilizing the world and causing bloodshed because it believes that such destabilizing is a precursor to the second coming of the Prince of Peace.

LGBTQ Catholics and the Conversation About Staying or Leaving: 15 More Theses About Truths That Need to Be Heard in This Conversation

My last posting was an attempt to tell truth that is, in my view, often obscured and even barred as Catholics discuss the "problem" or "challenge" of welcoming LGBTQ people within Catholic spaces, or as LGBTQ Catholics discuss the question of staying in or leaving the church. As that posting indicated, some of us who are LGBTQ and Catholic have never had any choice in the matter: we were shoved from the church when our vocations were shattered without explanation, our livelihood removed, our daily bread taken from our mouths, our healthcare coverage yanked from us — as we were shown the door and it was slammed in our faces.

LGBTQ Catholics Are Asked, Why Stay in the Church? My 15-Question Response

A recent conference at Boston College asks LGBTQ Catholics, Why stay? Why do you stay in the Catholic church?

Paul Ryan and the House Chaplain: Gospel According to Ayn Trumps Gospel of Jesus Christ

If they fired Fr. Conroy for praying for God’s politics in the House, they will also have to get rid of Moses and Isaiah, Deborah and Jesus, Frederick Douglass and Francis Perkins, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King. https://t.co/3u6jiSWz29

— Rev. Dr. Barber (@RevDrBarber) April 28, 2018

Elizabeth Dias and Shirley Gay Stolberg, "Firing of House Chaplain Causes Uproar on Capitol Hill":

Two Stories: Snapshot of Who We Have Become in Trump Era — Price-Gouging Diabetes Patients While Hedge Fund Managers Rake in Additional $10,000 Per Week

A hedge fund manager on Wall Street told me he was pleasantly surprised to see his pay go up $10,000 a week. He said that will more than cover the cost of his yacht club membership. 🛥#ThanksPaulRyan

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 4, 2018

 

At the very same time, I read the following two reports:

John Pavlovitz, "White Evangelicals, This is Why People Are Through With You"

Ed Mazza, "Former RNC Chair Michael Steele: Trump’s Evangelical Backers Need To 'Shut The Hell Up'"

John Pavlovitz, who pastors North Raleigh Community Church in North Carolina, writes a heartfelt letter to white evangelicals:

Boston Declaration: A Prophetic Appeal to Christians of the United States

As followers of Jesus, the Jewish prophet for justice whose life reminds us to, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31) we hear the cries of women and men speaking out about sexual abuse at the hands of leaders in power and we are outraged. We are outraged by the current trends in Evangelicalism and other expressions of Christianity driven by white supremacy, often enacted through white privilege and the normalizing of oppression. Confessing racism as the United States' original and ongoing sin, we commit ourselves to following Jesus on the road of costly discipleship to seek shalom justice for the least, the lost, and the left out. We declare that following Jesus today means fighting poverty, economic exploitation, racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression from the deepest wells of our faith.

~ Boston Declaration, 20 November 2017

"The Fish Rots from the Head" and American Catholic Reasons for Choosing Trump: My Take

It’s all-out war on the poor at this point. https://t.co/v89ZgmRQCd

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) November 17, 2017

In an article yesterday at Vox entitled "'The fish rots from the head': a historian on the unique corruption of Trump's White House," U.S. presidential historian Robert Dallek tells Sean Illing that "the Trump administration easily ranks among the most corrupt in American history." Dallek states,

Michael Kruse's Politico Analysis of Trump Voters in Light of Tuesday Elections: "A Story of People Who Are Addicted to White Supremacy"

A Sikh, an atheist and a trans woman walk into a bar. They all had a drink together to celebrate their election victories.

— God (@TheGoodGodAbove) November 8, 2017

On Facebook and Twitter, I'm finding that the most lively conversations now taking place after Tuesday's election focus on Michael Kruse's article published yesterday in Politico, about diehard Trump supporters in the economically depressed mining community of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Kruse is not directly commenting on Tuesday's election results, but his piece appeared at a fortuitous moment in that regard. It might as well be analysis of one side of the American political landscape — and why the other side of the political landscape so resoundingly repudiated that side in the elections held on Tuesday. 

"Some People Get Uninvited from Talks. Some People Never, Ever Get Even an Invitation to the Table at All": Mary Hunt, Marianne Duddy-Burke, Jamie Manson NCR Podcast Conversation

I've previously recommended to you Mary Hunt, Marianne Duddy-Burke, and Jamie Manson's essay at National Catholic Reporter entitled "Kick-Starting a New Catholic Conversation." I'd like now to recommend a podcast conversation between the three that NCR published several days ago. I've embedded it above for your convenience in listening. 

In this discussion, Mary, Marianne, and Jamie talk with NCR's Brittany Wilmes about their essay and what they intended in co-authoring it. Some key points that stand out for me as I listen:

A Twitter Thread in Response to Franklin Foer on What's Wrong with the Democrats

No mention at all of the significant role played by gerrymandering and voter suppression to lock in GOP control, as a minority. 1) https://t.co/PYX2jepDyW

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) June 21, 2017

This is a Twitter thread in response to Franklin Foer's "What's Wrong with the Democrats?" in the latest issue of The Atlantic.