June 2009 Archives

The debate over the President's "common ground" approach is focusing on two aspects: reducing abortion by supporting pregnant women, and reducing unintended preganancies by promoting sex ed and contraception.

With the package of legislation having been hashed over, the divide now is on whether to present both elements to Congress in a single package or to separate them out. Dan Gilgoff at USNews has a great story on the argument, which focuses on whether including both aspects in one bill would poison the whole package for pro-choicers, on the one hand, or pro-lifers, on the other. And on the other hand, separating them might doom each to defeat, as Gilgoff writes:

Many abortion rights advocates and some Democrats who want to dial down the culture wars want the White House to package the two parts of the plan together, as a single piece of legislation. The plan would seek to reduce unwanted pregnancies by funding comprehensive sex education and contraception and to reduce the need for abortion by bolstering federal support for pregnant women. Supporters of the approach say it would force senators and members of Congress on both sides of the abortion battle to compromise their traditional positions, creating true common ground that mirrors what President Obama has called for.

But more conservative religious groups working with the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships say they would be forced to oppose such a plan--even though they support the abortion reduction part--because they oppose federal dollars for contraception and comprehensive sex education. This camp, which includes such formidable organizations as the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, is pressuring the White House to decouple the two parts of the plan into separate bills. One bill would focus entirely on preventing unwanted pregnancy, while the other would focus on supporting pregnant women.

The White House declined a request for comment. Advocates for both plans say the administration has offered no hint about how it will come down on the matter. But with the White House expected to announce its plan on abortion and related issues this summer, advocates on both sides are strenuously lobbying for the plan, arguing that it offers the only true hope for common ground on very thorny issues.

"We welcome the opportunity to seek common ground with this administration . . . and to work on behalf of pregnant women and unborn children," says Deirdre McQuade, a spokesperson for the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, which is pressuring the White House to decouple pregnancy prevention from supporting pregnant women. "But issues of pregnancy prevention are much more divisive and would only slow down much-needed assistance to pregnant women."

Read it all here...

First, Benedict XVI confirms that tests done on bone fragments from a tomb venerated as that of the Apostle--but often considered more legend than fact--belonged to a man who lived between the first and second century.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul," the pope said during an evening prayer service June 28 at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, according to the CNS report.

The basilica has long been held to be the burial site of St. Paul, but because of the destruction and rebuilding of the basilica, the exact location of the tomb was unknown for centuries. Vatican officials announced in December 2006 that several feet below the basilica's main altar and behind a smaller altar, they had found a roughly cut marble sarcophagus beneath an inscription that reads: "Paul Apostle Martyr."

Because part of the sarcophagus is buried beneath building material, Vatican officials determined they could not dig it out to open and examine the contents. Initially they tried to X-ray it to see what was inside, but the marble was too thick.

Pope Benedict said a "very tiny perforation" was drilled into the marble so that a small probe could be inserted in order to withdraw fragments of what was inside.In addition to traces of purple linen, a blue fabric with linen threads and grains of red incense, he said they found bone fragments.

The bone fragments "underwent a carbon-14 analysis carried out by experts who did not know their place of origin," the pope said, adding that the results "indicate they belong to a person who lived between the first and second century."

Just as remarkable is the news that Vatican archaeologists have found what is likely the oldest known portrait of St Paul--a fourth-century mosaic (shown above, from the London Times story) that shows the Apostle to the Gentiles much as he has been portrayed down through the centuries.

L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, which devoted two pages to the discovery, said that the oval portrait, dated to the 4th century, had been found in the catacombs of St Thecla, not far from the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls, where the apostle is buried. The find was "an extraordinary event", said Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Barbara Mazzei, a restorer, said that centuries of grime had been removed with a laser. Fabrizio Bisconti, Professor of Christian Iconography at Rome University and a member of the team that made the discovery, said that it appeared to have decorated the tomb of a nobleman or high church official.

Or St. Nowhere's?

In a report disputed by the White House, TIME's Amy Sullivan writes that the much-anticipated decision on where the Obama's would worship has been settled, and instead of joining a congregation in Washington, Obama will do like W. and worship at Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David. This ends a long church hunt familiar to many who move, especially with young children. But of course, few of us happen to be the POTUS. Sullivan writes:

"A number of factors drove the decision -- financial, political, personal -- but chief among them was the desire to worship without being on display. Obama was reportedly taken aback by the circus stirred up by his visit to 19th Street Baptist in January. Lines started forming three hours before the morning service, and many longtime members were literally left out in the cold as the church filled with outsiders eager to see the new President. Even at St. John's, which is so accustomed to presidential visitors that it is known as the "Church of the Presidents," worshippers couldn't help themselves from snapping photos of Obama on their camera phones as they walked down the aisle past him to take communion."

But at USNews, Dan Gilgoff reports the White House as saying no way, the search is still on:

The President and First Family continue to look for a church home. They have enjoyed worshipping at Camp David and several other congregations over the months, and will choose a church at the time that is best for their family.

The decision is fraught, and the Camp David choice wouldn't seem as isolating as I imagined. The chapel draws upwards of 70 people each Sunday to its "nondenominational Christian services," which are open to the nearly 400 military personnel and staff at Camp David and their families. A Navy chaplain and nephew of Johhny Cash--and a Southern Baptist!--is the current pastor. A long ways from Jeremiah Wright. The late Cardinal James Hickey of Washington delivered a sermon calling the chapel a "witness to our common belief that we need to seek divine guidance in the conduct of our national affairs," Sullivan writes.  

Still...I hope Obama does choose a congregation, embedded in the community and part of a distinct and longstanding tradition, as he did before. There are many understandable factors working against such a choice. As Gilgoff notes:

George W. Bush, who was perceived as intensely religious, could afford to worship quietly at Camp David. Obama, who's still establishing himself as a Christian in the public eye and who continues to battle false rumors that he's a Muslim, could afford to flaunt his Sunday-morning habits a bit more.

Sticking with Evergreen Chapel (jeez, what a name) does cut a president off from the negotiations, as it were, that come from commitment to any larger community. And those negotiations are part of the journey of faith. But they're young. Maybe after 2016--or 2012?--they'll be free to choose another church.

For now, conservative Catholics are just happy the Obamas aren't becoming Catholic, as the White House confirmed last week. And I, for one, hope he doesn't go the "C Street" route that did so much for Mark Sanford's personal growth...

BTW, anyone know where the W. Bush's are worshipping these days? Not much easier for ex-presidents to take a pew anonymously.

And that was back in 1973! Another fascinating bit of transcription from recently-released tapes of conversations between Nixon and Billy Graham, this time focusing on Nixon's take on Catholics of the day. At America magazine's blog, Jim Martin has the goods. The set-up is Graham and Nixon discussing prospects for a worldwide church body to counter the left World Council of Churches. The two men see leading bishops in the GOP camp, and the Jesuits as "all-out, barn-burning radicals." Plus ca change!

President Nixon: Now what about the Catholics?

Rev. Graham: We don't know.  They're going to come in great numbers as observers. 

Nixon: Yeah.

 

Graham: So far, they would not be able to participate, and uh, you know the Southern Baptist and other groups wouldn't um...

 

Nixon: Yeah...the trouble is...

Graham: They couldn't anyway.

 

Nixon: Yeah.  The difficulty too is that the Catholics aren't [in better shape] with that too.  They're going be losing their stroke, because...

 

Graham: They're...they're...that is the problem.

 

Nixon: They're split right down the middle.  They sure are.  You've got the good guys like [John Cardinal] Krol of Philadelphia, and [Terence Cardinal] Cooke in New York.  And then there's this bad wing, the Jesuits, who used to be the conservatives, and have become now become the all-out, barn-burning radicals. 

 

Graham: I think quite a bit, by the way, of that fellow you've got working with you--McLaughlin.

Nixon:  Oh yeah [laughter] the priest, yeah.  You know, he's good, and he's sort of a convert to our side.  He came in a total, all-out peacenik and then went to Vietnam and changed his mind.

 

Graham: I never met him, until I was over at a prayer breakfast over at the White House about a month ago.  He invited me up to his office, and I went over and spent about an hour with him.

 

Nixon: He's a very capable fellow, bright as a tack.

Yes, that would be John McLaughlin, a former Jesuit priest who, unlike the liberal Robert Drinan, defied his superiors and left the order to become a conservative commentator and political insider.

Here is a link to Tape 43, Conversation 161.

Anthea Butler makes the case at ReligionDispatches:

We loved the music, but the trash sold much more. Yet, for all of the crass tabloid fodder, Michael was his best when singing these hopeful songs that called listeners to become better human beings. He most certainly reached more people than the average religious figure, and his songs had an effect on an entire generation weaned on MTV. His own religious journey, from his childhood as a Jehovah's Witness, to a foray into the Nation of Islam, to finally professing Shahada to become a Muslim shows an interior struggle, despite all of the fame, to find the peace he so often sang about. In all of the accolades and obituaries to come, Jackson will never be called a theologian, though he was one. A Pop theologian, to be sure, but a theologian nonetheless. Struggling with his humanity, half man, half child, he danced as much to entertain I suspect, as to take away his pain. In the dance, he became transcendent, divine. And in the end, it was the very body that he used to beguile millions that failed him.

Butler is a historian of American and African American Religion in residence at Harvard Divinity School's Women's Studies in Religion Program. Her argument is well done, I think, but also overdone on that point--or too much so for me. And I doubt the Jehovah's Witnesses would go for the "becoming divine" part. Nor would Muslims, for that matter.

Yet Butler's piece is very beautiful, especially the lead, in which she pulls together the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Jackson, with Ed McMahon as the obligatory third of the celebrity death trinity:

The '70s died for me on Thursday, June 25, 2009. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, both icons, died on the same day. Entertainment folklore has it that stars die in threes; so adding in Ed McMahon's death earlier this week truly means the '70s are dead and gone.