Roger O Green

P is for Pope Francis I

Pope Francis has launches reform of Vatican bureaucracy, with a cleanup of the Vatican bank.

As I have noted, I’m a Protestant with an odd fascination with Catholic popes. The accession, in March 2013, of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, 76, to become the 266th head of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, especially when his predecessor, Benedict XVI is still alive, intrigued me.

I admit that I’ve enjoyed that he’s made some in the church hierarchy nervous, when he faults the church’s focus on gays and abortion, though that feels more like optics rather than actual change to me. He may be right, though, when he describes ideological ‘Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’ within the Church.

More interesting to me is his suggestion if it’s understood correctly in a secular press, that it’s OK not to believe in God if you have a clean conscience. For a different perspective on what the Pope may have meant, read Anthony Velez, who is studying for the (Protestant) ministry.

Dr. Anne Hendershott, Professor, Franciscan University of Steubenville had perhaps the best take on the new pontiff in the Huffington Post:
Many traditional Catholics are beginning to feel–as Time magazine columnist, Mary Eberstadt recently suggested–that they have been “thrown under the popemobile.” …

They would be wrong. While Pope Francis has said that “we cannot insist only ” on these culture war issues, most have not noticed that he also added that “the teachings of the Church are clear…and I am a son of the Church…but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”…

And, while traditionalists maintain that we still need to talk about them sometimes, an increasing number of progressives and traditionalists are beginning to acknowledge the possibility of finding a true common ground. If Pope Francis can help us reach that common ground, then his pontificate will truly be the “one we have been waiting for.”

A few years ago,…I titled a chapter in [my book Status Envy], “A Pope Away from a Perfect Life.” The chapter suggested that progressives have always believed that they were a “pope away” from a Catholic Church that would allow full reproductive rights, female ordination, and same-sex marriage.

It is likely that progressives–and traditionalists as well–will still have to wait a while for that perfect life. Besides, Christians know that we all remain “strangers in a strange land” here on earth. There will never be a “perfect life” here. But Pope Francis is simply asking that we all work together to make that life better for each other. Perhaps it is time to start.

Frankly, I’m more impressed that Pope Francis has launched the reform of Vatican bureaucracy, with a cleanup of the Vatican bank. In September, “the bank released its first-ever financial report (it is doing quite well, making $117 million last year, more than quadruple the 2011 figure. This year’s number is projected to be substantially lower partly because of the costs of the transparency campaign).” Now, to quote someone else, THIS is a change I can believe in.

This action, tied with his simpler lifestyle, more in keeping with Scripture than some German bishops have been living, gives me some hope that some positive permanent change might come from this papacy.

ABC Wednesday – Round 13

Bad linkage, says the mighty Google

Does this ever happen to you? It happens to me roughly every 15 days, where someone will e-mail me a letter like this:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I hope you’re doing well. I’m writing to you because my domain RedactedDomain.com was struck by an unnatural links penalty from Google. You might be aware of how Google can penalize a site if they think that the site is or was using dishonest link-building techniques.

Well, I’m not an expert on what Google determines to be a harmful link, so I can’t be sure, but I have reason to believe that Google views hyperlinks from your website OneOfRoger’sSites.com to RedactedDomain.com as a violation of Google’s webmaster’s guidelines. That’s why I would like to ask you to remove links from the following pages on your website to the following pages on my website:

SpecificLinkOnOneOfRoger’sSites.com linking to SpecificLinkOnRedactedDomain.com

I must admit that the first couple of times I got these, I ignored them. Then I thought, “It’s not that big a deal,” and deleted the link, occasionally even deleting the whole post – though not on this blog – because the link was the point of the post. But the last time, I go to the link and can’t find the offending part. What a bother.

What I DID find, though, is a BROKEN link. Generally, I don’t go back and check old links, because that’s all I would do. But if someone comments on an old post, or I discover a broken link on something previously published, I will replace it if I can, remove it if I can’t.

Fellow bloggers, what’s your policy on these matters?

NALT Christians

October is LGBT History Month

Last month, my friend Dan sent me a link to this nifty page about Christians Openly Supporting LGBT Community In ‘We’re Not All Like That’ Campaign. I wrote back, “This will appear on my blog within the week! Thanks; I had not seen this.” I was particularly taken by Fred Clark’s video, maybe because of how he self-identifies.

Obviously, I didn’t post anything, and frankly, it got lost in my e-mails. Then Arthur wrote about it, and I was going to let it go as a topic. Moreover, while I appreciate the sentiment of NALT, I never like things identified by what they are NOT. Quirky, I know.

But then I saw this story about a tea party leader and former Baptist pastor who is proposing to file a ‘class action lawsuit’ against ‘homosexuality.’ Oy.

So let me share with you a sermon by Nicole Garcia at the MLP National Conference at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Tucson, AZ on Saturday, September 28, 2013, which addresses the topic of how some in the church view an inclusive faith.

Did you know that October is LGBT History Month? I did not until I saw a couple of huge displays in the fellowship hall of MY church.

I was telling this story recently: At my previous church, I was talking to one of the church leaders about the fact that we ought to have a discussion about gay rights; this would have been c 1990. She said, “We already did that.” I started attending in 1982 and joined in 1984, and I had no recollection of this. “Oh, we had somebody come in and talk with us in 1976.” Over the next several years, I brought it up, but the idea never gained any traction.

I’m happy to be in a church now without that ambiguity.
***
From Newsmax:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Monday withdrew legal opposition to gay marriage, making same-sex nuptials the law in the state.
The move makes New Jersey the 14th state in the nation to legalize gay marriage…
At City Hall in Newark, the state’s most populous city, Cory Booker, the two-term Democratic mayor who voters elected to the U.S. Senate last week, officiated for seven gay and two heterosexual couples who descended a set of curving steps just before midnight…
Booker, 44, who had refused to perform heterosexual weddings in his city of 277,700 residents because he objected to the exclusion of same-sex couples, called the ceremonies “one of the greatest privileges of my life.”

This dialogue from The West Wing is even better when you hear Martin Sheen say it.

LISTEN to Red Flag by XELLE

The Lydster, Part 115: Honesty

The Daughter has a very strong sense of fairness and justice.

My wife, when some bit of my loose change would fall on the floor, would claim it as her own, if I didn’t pick it up in time, and put it in her change jar. It was this little game of hers and I didn’t much mind, though it’s not as though she needed the money; she now makes more than I do.

I would start getting a bit irritated, though, when I’d leave change on the table or the bed or my dresser, usually in order to take it out of one pair of pants, before putting it into another. Somehow, this was the game taken too far, and I said as much. Not only was it boring, but it also made being home a bit less of the sanctuary I wanted it to be.

The practice stopped, though, only when, at some point a few months ago, the Daughter was staying a couple of nights at her maternal grandparents’ house. She told them that Mama was always stealing from Papa (her current terms of endearment for us). My wife’s mother then relayed this message to her daughter. The Wife realized that, perhaps, she was not offering HER daughter the best role model, even in jest.

The Daughter has a very strong sense of fairness and justice, and by her taking the situation to a higher court, this worked out well for me also.

The eldest niece is 35 (tomorrow)

Rebecca’s been busy with lots of jobs to make a living, but it is the music that really matters.

The best part of Rebecca Jade’s early growing up was that she lived not that far away. I was in New Paltz or Albany (NY), and she and her parents (my sister Leslie and her now ex-husband) were living in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY, a couple-hour bus ride away. So I saw her a month after she was born, and then several times the next couple of years, including on her first and second birthdays.

Then they moved away, first to North Carolina, then to Puerto Rico for over six years, and I never made it down there, much to my regret, since the photos made their place seem beautiful. I’ve noticed, though, that when I did get a chance to see her – at my grandmother’s funeral, visiting New York City – there is photographic evidence that I was the one who was coloring with her or upon whose shoulders she sat. I’ve also mentioned that when RJ was three and four, she looks a lot like my daughter at three or four (or vice versa.)

She and her folks went to the San Diego, CA area, where I would visit as often as possible, but most often I’d see her at my parents’ house in Charlotte, NC. She is a dozen years older than Marcia’s daughter Alexandria, and she was a GREAT big cousin, just as Alex is a great big cousin to Lydia.

Even early on, Rebecca was interested in music, following in her mother’s footsteps. She was in some trio when she was about 16, and they even recorded some tracks. The problem was, and I say this not out of pride but in fact, she was the only one who could really sing.

Another thing was into was basketball. She was a star on her high school team, and a starter on her college team at U Cal Berkeley; I actually got to see her play live once when her team played in the NYC area. Of course, I made it to graduation from both HS and college.

She got married on 3/7/05, 37 being the uniform number of her husband Rico Curtis when he played football in college and subsequently. 5 was RJ’s uniform number in college.

Rebecca’s been busy with lots of jobs to make a living, but it is the music that really matters. She’s singing with so many different groups I have lost track; she’s quite eclectic. There’s Siren’s Crush, and the Soul Tones, and some jazz quartet.

She’s put out one album, thanks to Kickstarter, and is now working on a second one. Here’s her website. You can listen to a couple of cuts from her new project with Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact.

She recently wrote her mantra on Facebook: “When we aren’t constantly trying to achieve and even surpass our creative potential, or we choose to give in to mediocrity, a part of our soul is neglected.”

Happy birthday, Rebecca. I love you.