“The evidence [in a 500-page Indiana Dept of Labor
report, four months in the making] overwhelmingly demonstrated that the university made a decision to utilize its scissor lifts in known adverse weather conditions,” said Lori Torres, a state Department of Labor commissioner, describing the “knowing citation” issued against Notre Dame as “the most serious safety violation.”
Response:
In a statement, Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins reiterated his concession of last November that “we failed to keep [Declan Sullivan] safe, and for that we remain profoundly sorry.”
Chi Trib has this Dept. of Labor story in great detail, yesterday and today, where this:
INDIANAPOLIS Despite insisting the weather was uneventful even beautiful the day Declan Sullivan toppled to his death last fall while filming football practice, members of the University of Notre Dame athletic department worried about the safety of another student videographer and initially kept her from going up in a lift because of stiff winds, newly released records show.
Point is, people get hired on what basis and with what vetting, and they hire people on what basis etc. Top-down, we have Fr. Jenkins being hired and hiring, etc. All of it contributes. You fudge this issue, you fudge that one, and next thing you know, the enterprise begins to lose lustre.
Rev. Michael Pfleger in talks with archdiocese to take over struggling Leo High School, a few blocks from the St. Sabina rectory, says Jay Levine of CBS-2, as carried by Sun-Times.
To which Pfleger: neither confirm nor deny:
I’m in discussions with the Archdiocese but you know those are private conversations at this point and I cant comment at this point about those conversations.
Some creative thinking here?
Later: He’s going to fight this, says a Blithe Spirit source.
Yet later: He’s mobilizing the troops:
In response to the news broadcasts about St. Sabina, The Cabinet is holding a Parish Town Hall Meeting in the Church Sanctuary on Thursday, March 17th at 7pm. This meeting is for St. Sabina Members only.
Christ is made the sure foundation, . . . the entrance hymn for the Popes [recent] visit to Westminster Abbey: with its magnificent tune by Henry Purcell and equally majestic words by John Mason Neale (from a seventh-century Latin hymn) . . . it was such stuff as ceremonial dreams are made on.
Which begins:
Christ is made the sure foundation,
Christ the head and cornerstone,
chosen of the Lord, and precious,
binding all the Church in one;
holy Zions help for ever,
and her confidence alone.
All that dedicated city,
dearly loved of God on high,
in exultant jubilation
pours perpetual melody;
God the One in Three adoring
in glad hymns eternally.
Not for everyone, but there’s always Ray Repp, the guitar man, heh.
The ordinariate allows Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church while retaining “a love and gratitude for the Anglican forms of faith and worship.”
The ordinariate website explains that an interim governing council is meeting regularly to oversee the development of the organization. An official governing council will be formed after Easter 2011.
The governing council will have at least six priests, presided over by the ordinary. Half of the membership is elected by the priests of the ordinariate. It will have a pastoral council for consultation with the laity and a finance council.
The council will have the same rights and responsibilities in canon law that the college of consultors and the council of priests have in the governance of a diocese. Out of respect for the synodal tradition of Anglicanism, the ordinary will need the consent of the governing council to admit a candidate to Holy Orders and to erect or suppress a personal parish or a house of formation.
The council will also have a vote in choosing a list of names of a new ordinary to submit to the Holy See. [Italics added]
These last two items demonstrate a distinctly reformist trend in Roman Catholicism. Stay tuned.
More: This England and Wales ordinariate “would probably be a model for what we would do here in the U.S.,” said Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Wash DC a few weeks. He has been named point man for ordinariate-organizing in the U.S.
Emerging Anglican Catholic Ordinariates are for Roman Catholics who worship largely in Anglican ways. Refugees from the Anglican Communion. Non-refugees may find here a more reverent mass etc.
Three years [after her parish church in Minersville PA
was shuttered], [Marie] Lutkus and parishioners at eight other shuttered churches in Pennsylvania‘s Allentown diocese have persuaded a Vatican panel to overturn the bishop’s decision to close them down an exceedingly rare reversal that experts say may signal a policy shift on U.S. church closures.
“This is a thunderclap. I am absolutely floored,” said Charles Wilson, executive director of the Saint Joseph Foundation, a San Antonio, Texas-based group that helps Catholic laity navigate church law.
What else?
In a series of decisions that parishioner groups began receiving in January, the Congregation for the Clergy the Vatican office in charge of the world’s 400,000 Catholic priests said the bishop had failed to come up with a “grave reason” for shuttering the churches as required by Catholic law. The panel ruled that parishioners must be allowed to use the padlocked buildings for worship.
“It does not bring the parish back to life, but it puts on the table what could be a workable compromise: to physically re-open the locked-up church as a Catholic place of worship,” said prominent Catholic activist Peter Borre of the Council of Parishes, which has spent years appealing church closures in the Boston area.
They can start with Bible services and maybe persuade a priest to come and offer the holy sacrifice. Who knows?
They also need a finance committee. volunteer maintenance, money, etc. Can it be done?
Capitalism in conflict with governmental maw in Illinois. Amazon is pulling out, as it announces by email:
Hello,
For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of Illinois residents. Unfortunately, a new state tax law signed by Governor Quinn compels us to terminate this program for Illinois-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by Illinois-based affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.[Italics added throughout]
We had opposed this new tax law because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It was supported by national retailing chains [such as Sears, see below], most of which are based outside Illinois, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. [Here is where intrusive government has its favorites — big campaign donors etc. — those who are more equal than others, to draw on Orwell.] Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. [Most such intrusions do just that.] We deeply regret that its enactment forces this action.
It does not bother committed lib and quite affluent, thank you, Roger Ebert, who blows it off:
Roger Ebert is free to tweet about Levi’s corduroy pants after April 15, but Amazon will no longer pay him if someone buys a pair.
“Amazon will terminate my Associates account on 4/15, in order to evade fair and just [!] Illinois taxes. I have 20 more days to make a fortune,” wrote the film critic on his @EbertChicago account yesterday.
Amazon.com Inc.’s battle with state governments over sales taxes is escalating.
The online retailer on Thursday took action in Illinois, as it had threatened to do, to counter a new law aimed at forcing online retailers to collect sales taxes in the state. Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island have enacted similar laws, and California is weighing action. Amazon is also in a court battle with New York over such legislation.
The Illinois law, signed by Gov. Pat Quinn Thursday, requires online retailers that work with affiliates in the state to collect sales taxes on purchases made by Illinois residents and businesses. Amazon responded to the measure by cutting ties to its Illinois-based affiliates, which are blogs and other websites that refer traffic to Amazon’s website and get paid commissions if customers make purchases there.
The draconian so-called E-Fairness Bill signed into law by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, was being drooled over by Sears Holdings Corporation (Nasdaq:SHLD), as they backed the proposal for companies like Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) to be forced to collect taxes even though they have no physical presence in the state.
Sears said this in a press release: “Sears Holdings Corporation (Nasdaq:SHLD) one of Illinois’ oldest retailers, applauds Governor Pat Quinn’s approval of House Bill 3659, which will restore long overdue fairness to the tax system for retailers and taxpayers in Illinois. The “E-fairness Law” helps to correct a longstanding problem of out-of-state businesses not collecting and remitting the sales tax in Illinois, a practice that has put brick-and-mortar retailers at an unfair competitive disadvantage for far too long.
The consumer? Who cares about her? Gummint wants the money. Doesn’t always pay to build a better mousetrap.
The Amazon action has little impact on Illinois consumers. They can continue to buy directly from the company as well as pass through affiliate websites to reach its website, without Amazon collecting sales tax. But Amazon’s payments to those websites will be halted.
The 9,000 affiliates generated $611 million in advertising revenue and $18 million in tax revenue in 2009, said Rebecca Madigan, director of an affiliate trade group called the Performance Marketing Association, who estimates the state will lose 25% to 30% of that tax revenue because the affiliates will lose business, cut jobs or move out of the state.
In other words, helping Sears means hurting someone else. That’s gummint for you, mucking around in the market place.
Blithe Spirit 