Day: September 17, 2010

Saboteur Murkowski

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Lisa, have you no shame?

Another from Mike Fahy, on top of RINO problems:

Lisa Murkowski (RINO loser in Alaska) apparently will launch a write-in candidacy thus giving Democrats an excellent possibility of having two U.S. Senators from Alaska. Bush’s Justice Dep’t gave Dems the other Alaskan senate seat two years ago by unethically prosecuting the incumbent Republican.

This is still further evidence that RINOs are more comfortable electing a Liberal Democrat than electing a Palin-endorsed Conservative Republican.

Murkowski’s announcement is scheduled for 8:00 o’clock tonight Chicago time. See Rich Lowry in National Review, and Anchorage Daily News, and Los Angeles Times.

Bloggers take note, if not umbrage

Lego Blogger Picture
Blogger on five-minute break

RJ Stove asks, “Should Catholics blog?” noting three ethical potholes on the blogospheric highway:

i. Addiction, with all its dangers;

ii. Pseudonymity, with all its dangers;

iii. Encouraging smart-aleck soundbites rather than hard, detailed, historically scrupulous reasoning;

iv. Related to (iii), a general degrading of language, and of the writers role as languages custodian (not to say as breadwinner);

v. De facto anticlericalism.

For instance:

The Internets capacity for creating addicts is something that even the stupidest Panglossian social worker no longer attempts to deny. Every conscientious priest is aware of it; many a priest worries about it; some priests actually issue warnings to their flock about it. More priests should do so.

Etc.

But “many a priest worries about it”? Hell, most of them don’t know what it is or look on it with — shall we say — clerical condescension. For one thing, blogging has built into an interactivity that’s not in many priests’ vocabulary either.

Nonetheless, Stove has a good examination-of-conscience checklist here.

Sucker punch

Good Jesuit, Bad Jesuit gives us a few ‘graphs of Fr. James Martin SJ on liberation theology, including this misleading item:

In its heyday, liberation theology was not without controversy: some in the church, and some in the Vatican, thought it skirted too close to Marxism–including Pope John Paul II. On the other hand, John Paul didnt shy away from personally involving himself in direct political activism in Poland.

Activism specifically to counter communism, to which threat Martin gives no attention, using “liberation” and announced intention to help poor people as if they were celebrated in a political vacuum, which they were not, as Bill McIlhany argues here.

Seattle-bound

Bishop Sartain
Bishop to be archbishop

Bp J. Peter Sartain of Joliet off to Seattle to be youngest U.S. archbishop.

Sartain said dealing with the clergy sexual abuse scandal will be one of his challenges in Western Washington.

The Seattle archdiocese has paid about $42 million in settlements, counseling and attorneys fees to about 300 victims over the past 23 years, with about 70 percent of the money paid by insurance companies.

On Thursday, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) criticized Sartain for ordaining a priest last year who[m] Catholic officials allegedly caught with pornography on his computer a few months earlier. In January, Sartain removed the priest as parochial vicar at a parish after a boy accused the priest of sexually abusing him. The priest pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and was sentenced this month to four years in prison.

Sartain said Thursday he couldnt comment on the case.

What I have tried to do and will continue to try to do is to be very vigilant in the preparation of our priests and likewise very open to the suffering of victims, whether theyre recent or many, many years ago, he said. I will be available to meet with victims and their families because thats, I think, a very important, direct part of the process of healing that needs to take place.

Good luck.

This is how it’s done

Ehnorton
Won't you come home, dear lobbyist, won't you come home?

Eleanor Holmes Norton putting the arm on a lobbyist.

Reader D:

I heard this tape of Eleanor Holmes Norton on Rush’s show, or Glenn Beck’s yesterday.  Blago should feel put upon that he’s in the stocks while other pols are able to do this thing and get by with it.

I heard this tape of Eleanor Holmes Norton on Rush’s show, or Glenn Beck’s yesterday.
Blago should feel put upon that he’s in the stocks while other pols are able to do his thing and get by with it.