U.N. Resolution Recognizes Gay Rights, NY Catholic Leader Says Comparing Gay Struggle to Civil Rights Struggle "Odious"

Two worldviews, two opposing views of human rights: it's fascinating that on the same day the United Nations Human Rights Council passes a resolution calling for a worldwide study of rights of LGBT persons because anti-gay violence and discrimination is persistent around the globe, a Catholic leader in New York, Msgr. Kieran Harrington, Brooklyn diocese's Vicar for Communications, informs the media that it's "odious" to see civil marriage for gay couples as a civil rights issue.  And that the struggle for human rights for LGBT people can't be compared to the similar struggle for rights for people of color, because, 

In the News: Matthew Fox on Catholic Future, Boston Parish on Welcoming All, and John McWhorter on Tracy Morgan

As the weekend approaches, a selection of worthwhile articles on a variety of topics:

Jan Morris on Holy Places: Valuing the View from the Interstices

 

I'm loving Jan Morris's book Europe: An Intimate Journey (London: Faber & Faber, 2006).  As with everything else she writes, it's always right at the intersection--of cultural crossroads, religious crossroads, ethnic and geographic crossroads, etc.  Right at the intersection of one crossroad after another, just as her beloved city of Trieste, to which she returns again and again in her books (this one included), is interstitial.  Liminal.  Full of ambiguity and a multiplicity of ambiguous, syncretistic meaning derived from the confluence of many different cultures none of which dominates in the cultural mix that has come to be known as Trieste.

What Really Drives Catholics Making Gays Unwelcome? Keeping American Catholicism Politically Pure

A thought that's been knocking around in my head since I posted about the recent discussion at the In All Things blog of America magazine about the controversy re: an All Are Welcome liturgy at St. Cecilia's parish in Boston:

U.S. Catholic Bishops' Leader Blasts Civil Rights of Gay Citizens (Again), Compares Struggle for Civil Rights to Totalitarianism

Though he was surely preparing for the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week--a conference of which he's president--Archbishop Timothy Dolan took time recently to issue yet another blast at his blog site against the rights of gay citizens.  Specifically, Dolan blasted the right of gay citizens to civil marriage as New York's Catholic governor Andrew Cuomo urges the New York legislature to pass a bill affording this right to gay citizens of that state.  Dolan's ongoing fixation on gay folks and their civil rights continues to attract negative attention in many quarters--right now, notably, in two good responses to his recent blog posting by Peter Montgomery at Religion Dispatches and Rob Tisani at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Catholic Blogsphere Abuzz with Rumors of Corapi Announcement: Deacon Greg Kandra Breaks Story

Deacon Greg Kandra is reporting the first tiny peep in months from Father Corapi--at least, the first one I've heard about, though I still occasionally receive zingy (and, often, frankly astonishingly nasty) comments from the Corapi fan club responding to my postings weeks back about his situation.  (I've just linked to the last of my previous postings; interested readers can follow the string back from that one).

Joan Walsh on the Story the Obama Administration Needs to Tell: Dangerous, Unprecedented Accumulation of Wealth at Top

Joan Walsh's analysis of the glaring moral failing of the Obama administration, and of the danger this failing poses to ordinary U.S. citizens, dovetails with Robert Scheer's at TruthDig, in the statement to which I linked yesterday: