Manya Brachear -An Intellectual Bag of Hammers on Gay Marriage

Religion in Chicago Media - Bags of Hammers: Manya Brachear and Cathleen Falsani (emerita)

Supporters of gay marriage call the renewed effort to highlight natural law a clever but disingenuous appeal to the masses. Manya Brachear, The Seeker, of The Chicago Tribune

Let's see, you got invited for tea for an update on the man's cancer therapies and then you wait ten days and called your host a liar?

She's The Seeker!

Here's the deal, on December 10th Cardinal George invited members of the Chicago media over to his house for tea.  Illinois Reps. Greg Harris and Heather Steans are bursiting bowels, theirs and the usual Springfield chattel, old and new, to rush through the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act exactly one year after somehow living through the the Religious Freedom and Civil Union law, which was signed by Governor Pat Quinn, who will sign anything Personal Pac President and Illinois boss wrangler Terry Cosgrove tells him to sign. When Terry Cosgrove opens his yap, Planned Parenthood and Fred Eychaner's dollars pour out; when he clams up so do the dollars.

Among the doyennes and dowagers  of pop culture, religion, economics and of course politics, balancing tea-cups above their cankles, was Chicago's own Seeker, Manya Brachear, the religion/well-spiritualist one-time columnist and extant religion scribbler for The Trib, who somehow managed to convince Chicago that Cathleen Falsani, formerly of the Sun Times, was not just surfing in Nebraska. Yep, Manya Brachear is an intellect to cause hushed awe and reverence among the appliance at Sears Hardware.

Cardinal George explained to this congress of viragoes, yet again, that the Catholic Church and those who attend it maintain that the sacrament of marriage was instituted by Christ to give grace -Will and Grace not withstanding:

"Marriage comes to us from nature," Chicago's Cardinal Francis George said in a recent interview. "That's based on the complementarity of the two sexes in such a way that the love of a man and a woman joined in a marital union is open to life, and that's how families are created and society goes along. … It's not in our doctrine. It's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of reason and understanding the way nature operates."

So, for next twenty days,  The "now moved-on" Seeker , Terry Cosgrove/Fred Eychaner rolo-dex and caught up with the voices necessary present a slam-dunk Gay Marriage New Years buffet of outrage:

"On sexual ethics, nature is neutral," said Bernard Schlager, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. "We're moral beings. We may look to nature for some aspects of how we are in our lives, but we answer to a higher standard. Sexual behavior is an expression of human love."
According to the tradition of natural law, every human being must seek a fundamental "good" that corresponds to the natural order to flourish. Natural-law proponents say heterosexual intercourse between a married man and a woman serves two intertwined good purposes: to procreate and to express a deep, abiding love. . . . And . . .Other people of faith disagree. Last Sunday, more than 250 Illinois clergy members, mostly Protestant and Jewish, endorsed the gay marriage bill as "morally just to grant equal opportunities and responsibilities to loving, committed same-sex couples. . . .

Alice Hunt, president of Chicago Theological Seminary, said the natural-law argument seems like a "strategic move."
"They quickly saw biblical marriage wasn't going to work," she said. "It doesn't work for me because you're still depending on one person or some group of people's interpretation of natural law. When you look at the history of marriage, there are many ways marriage has taken shape over time."

• Nature is neutral?   Tell that, Bernie Schlager, to Old John Stuart Mill who noted that “It (Nature) impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with stones… starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve…. All this Nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice.” 
• Marriage has taken shape in many ways? Concubinage? polyandry?  polygamy? Good old beer-goggled fornication?

Ten days and that was all Manya could come up with.  Manya, Gay Marriage Illinois is a political power play controlled by our elected officials in Springfield, Santa leaves toys for kids, the Easter Bunny is always seen in the company of former Gov. Pat Quinn, the Red Sun of Krypton turns green on reaching the earth's atmosphere,Oliver Stone has a history show on cable and big old bag of hammers has nothing on you.

Fabulous Fib : Manya Brachear's "Illinois Clergy Endorse Gay Marriage Bill"

Manya - The Seeker
View Larger Map Each dot represents a church and there are 10,360 churches in Chicago and a thick number in Auburn Gresham

More than 250 faith leaders, many from Chicago, back measure that could face vote in January -Manya Brachear the Chicago Tribune's Seeker

And you shall find that Manya Brachear numbers of support for Greg Harris's Gay Marriage Bill are underwhelming.

Consider this, The Archdiocese of Chicago which represents and shepherd's more than 2.3 million Catholics in Cook and Lake Counties numbers 3,325 clergy persons on its rolls alone:

• Diocesan Priests (including active and retired): 791
• Religious Priests: 710
• Religious Brothers: 250
• Women Religious: 1,781
• Permanent Deacons: 559
• Certified Pastoral Associates: 164

Total of 3, 325 persons numbered as clergy within the Roman Catholic  Archdiocese of Chicago alone.

 Manya's total smacks up a tiny 7% of that clergy demographic alone.  Now add to the total of Catholic clergy the reported 1,190 clergy of other denonminations for a total of 4,515 that percenatge drops to 5.7%



Liars figure and figures do lie - Now, this I know. There are 10,360 churches listed in the city of Chicago, each with a pastor/clergy person doing the shout-out to the Lord.  I dare say that most are not Catholic. Now, that makes the number of clergy listed as a bit light. If there are 10,360 and only 4,515 clergy persons -what's up with that, Manya?  That head-scratcher needs a Seeker.

Take a peek at the map of Churches in Auburn Gresham up above.

Let's consider one Chicago neighborhood that I am familiar with -Auburn Gresham.   I drive each morning from Morgan Park to Leo High School and I take either 79th Street from Western Ave east, or 87th Street to Racine.  Between 87th Street and 79th Street on Racine alone there more than 20 African American Churches operated by clergy persons and that is a matter of a mere eight(8) city blocks. Here's the pay-off there are 10,360 churches listed in Chicago and a very thick number of those in this neighborhood alone.

I dare say, there might be one or two pastors in this demographic in full communion with Manya and Boss Terry Cosgrove and Representatives Heather Stearns and Greg Harris and media mogul Fred Eychaner, but I seriously doubt that the other 10,358 Chicago pastors favor Gay Marriage.  I could be wrong.

The Seeker and the Chicago Tribune, as well as the Gay Community are very happy that 260 clergy support Gay Marriage.  That is fabulous.

Schmich and Awwwwww! Pulitzer Howitzer Mary Schmich Fires at Mitres

   

To say that the Catholic Church is not a democracy is to state its very nature: for Catholic believers, it is the institution founded by God to implement His will on earth. For those who believe this, it is the end of the discussion. If you do not believe this, why be interested in what the church thinks or says about anything?

An interesting aspect of these discussions is the way selective interpretations of the Second Vatican Council – which the Association of Catholic Priests, for example, claims as its principal inspiration and motivation – are employed to consider matters relating to the church as though to a political party. John Waters Irish Times April 20, 2012

The sisters are stunned by the news, sad, weary, worried.

And, for public purposes, they are mostly silent. . Pulitzer Possessor Mary Schmich

It seems nuns got stunned when Pope Benedict XVI and the lads in Pope City told Catholic Nuns here in the States that they are on the wrong side of issues, as far as the Church teachings are concerned.  Some nuns prefer the Progressive, NPR, DNC, and Secular doctrines which demand abortion, that women be ordained priests and the call for a general absolution of all same-gender sexual dalliances.  Not a huge head-scratcher that, let alone a stunner. 

Navy S.E.A.Ls shoot Osamas and Somalii pirates without a reference to the M.K. Gandhi rules of engagement. I am sure that if some S.E.A.L.s were stunned to learn that killing is their vocation, they would be referred to the H & R folks at GreenPeace.

Not stunning.

I was no where near stunned with the news that Chicago Tribune columnist and Brenda Starr narrator Mary Schmich won a Pulitzer.  Mary Schmick was cited because  "Schmich's stories resonated with readers and won over the Pulitzer jury, which cited her "wide range of down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city."

Okay.

I always thought that of Mary Schmich as the Kathy-half of the Tribune's Eric & Kathy Show - Eric Zorn being the Eric half - you know, those e-mail terms of endearment and just plain NPR fun engagement?

Mary Schmich grabbed a Pulitzer.  God bless her.

President Obama grabbed Nobel Peace Prize after his apology tour and beer summit with a cop, because "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future." I am not stunned when a no bid contract to a Canadian rail car company that buys wheels made in China gets a limited bit of attention, while Chicago media  wets its britches over the dead blond kid with the sport coat flipped over his shoulder, because the guy who punched him dead has Clout DNA.

The Chicago Tribune editorial board and its columnists like Eric Zorn and the always laughable religion writer Manya Brachear are firing shots at Catholics in order to keep our heads down and mouths shut.  Manya produced an idiotic report of faux outrage and a possible tax-suit against Peoria's Catholic Bishop Jenky who preached about the continued war on Faith from the Obama regime.  Manya hooked up with Huffington Post columnist and veteran Democratic operative who happens to be the regional head of the Anti-Defamation League and no less a goofball than the Rev. Barry Lynn, a mainline Bill Moyers approved parser on matters of Faith and government.

When Manya's dribblings were laughed to depths of the Trib's cyber pages, the deep thinkers trotted out a Pulitzer howitzer to fire at mitres!

Schmich and awwww!

I am only stunned when I bring home left over carrot cake from Gibson's and open the fridge to learn that it escaped my son's gullet.

Stunned nuns are a whole nuther kettle of smelt.

Let's see who's stunned . . . "Please don't quote me," one Chicago nun said after she shared her feelings Friday. "Please don't quote me."  Stunning.

Yet, again!  "It's not cowardice," said another, asking not to be named. Un-named stunned nuns.  

In Pulitzer worthy balance. Ms. Schmich names an un-stunned nun:

Not all nuns feel that way. Sister Anne Flanagan, who belongs to the Daughters of St. Paul, thinks the Vatican has a point.
"It's a signal of how important religious women are to the ministry of the church," she said. "The Vatican is saying get back on track on some of these issues; don't lose the value of what you're doing for the sake of a dream."
She admits she's in a minority

That said our 2012 Pulitzer Proprietress quotes Sr. Donna Quinn, who is more responsible for media attention than any one nun by with her helping Planned Parenthood murder more Illinois babies and bragging about it. Schmick quotes Quinn from an earlier pronouncement about condemning the Church that houses, feeds and insures Sister Quinn.

As Sister Donna Quinn of Chicago was quoted saying recently, "You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube."

Now, that's Schmich and Awwwwww with a huge layer of WTF??????????????

You follow?

Me neither.  We don't get stunned much unless we hang around with septuagenarian contrarian nuns and when we find that left-over piece of Gibson's carrot-cake somehow escaped the maw of our twenty something sons and daughters.

Punish Faith - Gay Agenda

Children are not, in the words of the US Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), “mere creatures of the State".

Civil unions in Illinois had one very short honeymoon. Wildly ecstatic though that be -gay folks are mad again. To rev-up the bile of breeder folks, Faith needs a tune-up and Manya Brachear of the Tribune is more than compliant especially if Catholic Doctrine, Leadership or Catholics can be on the receiving end of some nonsense. Front page, GLBTQ agenda is gunning down Catholic and Lutheran social service agencies that handle adoption and Manya is pulling the trigger this morning with her breathless announcement that the State of Illinois is "investigating" Faith.

Not really, even ABC's Chuck Goudie could handle this investigation - Gay couples, joined in civil unions, cannot adopt a child. No news flash. Desire meets Doctrine -no contest.

Children who have lost or were abandoned by their biological parents have been the focus of Catholics and the Catholic Church in Chicago ever since it seemed that sidewalks might be better paths to a destination than wading through mud and maybe cholera might not get tramped on the carpets along with Chicago goo.

The first Chicago orphanages, the Chicago Orphan Asylum and the Catholic Orphan Asylum, opened their doors in 1849 in the aftermath of a cholera epidemic. By 1890, there were 12 orphanages in the city. They split along Roman Catholic and Protestant lines. Chicago had no Jewish orphanages until the 1890s. Until then, Jews tried to send orphans to institutions in Cincinnati, but some Jewish orphans lived in Protestant orphanages in Chicago. Almost all “orphans” in nineteenth-century Chicago orphanages had one parent living. They were places that single-parent families in financial crisis could safely keep their children. A few of them, like the Home for the Friendless, were gigantic, housing hundreds of children at a time.

Children were cared for by people of Faith. There were no doubt active and fulfilled homosexuals among Chicago's pioneers. However, due to the historical milieu and contemporary mores they no doubt celebrated their their difference with much less gusto and public displays of affection, than do Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning citizens today.

An active lesbian, Jane Addams, co opted the work of faith-based charity, by attacking the largest of these homes like the Home for the Friendless and secularized child care on a very small scale.

The largest orphan institutions were run by Catholics and the by the 20th Century became the standard for care of children without families - by the 1940's Angel Guardian alone cared for 1,200 children. In the 1970's the work of Jane Addams found fulfillment in the establishment of a State run agency the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and forced the closing of Illinois orphanages, including Angel Guardian in 1974.In 1975, Sister Rosemary Connolly kept up the fight and reconfigured Angel Guardian to become Misericordia Home - for special needs children. In the city of Chicago, Father James Close energized Mercy Home for Boys and Girls that had been established in the Loop by Fathers Campbell and Mahoney as a home for Working Boys - this expanded through the depression. Children were cared for by people of faith. Faith and Deeds bring 'capacity building' = not coalitions or news ink.

Father John Smyth a giant of a man with more heart than a continent and more balls than a bowling alley, expanded the 1880 Bishop Feehan established Maryville Academy, in Bridgeport and later in Des Plaines. Father Smyth received almost no money from Archdiocese, but used his political genius for pulling dollars from charitable donations raised by himself with dollars matched by the State.

The State, DCFS pumped their charges - children- into Maryville Academy. DCFS paid politically clouted Directors triple figures and larded the staff with more bureaucrats. Maryville was directed by Father Smyth a big good-hearted . . .patsy for the power players. Agenda jumps at opportunity - Jane Addams was all about opportunities take credit for what others had built. That is Progressive thought.

Power is what it is all about. Charity is trumped by a bureaucracy in the moused out rhetoric of do-gooder tax pirates. DCFS worked tirelessly with the media in the early 1990's to undermine the work of Father John Smyth who personally took on the work of caring for troubled children - the ones left in the bureaucratic cracks, alone, friendless, unloved - like the old hippie mantra -Somebody Else's Troubles. DCFS flooded Mercy Home for Boys and Girls

"Familiaris Consortio" (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) by the late Servant of God John Paul II. In it he wrote: "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others...”

The Gay Agenda demands that everyone cower before its lifestyle -any disagreement, or even mere 'live and let live' is intolerable. Gay agenda politics does not seek acceptance or tolerance.

Gay Marriage is the goal. In the way of that goal is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not recognize same sex . . .sex - let alone marriage. That will not change. Some silly priests might nuzzle up to the Gay Agenda, but the Church will not cave in on this issue. Allen and Albert are not going to go halves on a baby and neither will Tina and Toni. If every one were homosexual, it would be a Gay old world and we would finally achieve Zero Population growth - now that's Progressive!

In today's Chicago Tribune, the always hilarious Manya Brachear - The Seeker - roots out a self-fulfilling investigation on Gay Adoption. Catholic Charities is among the faith-based adoption agencies that denies Allen and Albert, or Tina and Toni from adopting a child. The Church holds that a mother and a father should adopt a child.

Manya slants the heartbreak to the bosom of the homosexual couple who might be denied the joy of parenting with the stamp of approval from Catholic or Lutheran adoption agencies and turns to always Progressively dependable ACLU and DCFS -

"Social intervention such as adoption laws and practices inevitably reflect their communities," said Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for DCFS. "Illinois as a state has grown on this (gay rights) issue as evidenced by (civil union legislation). Adoption law and practice should reflect the values of the people of Illinois."

Therefore, Catholics and Lutherans have not 'grown' and the agencies that care for children controlled by their unevolved dicta are hurtful and uncaring and must be punished - no State funding! Strip!

The kids be damned! Get on the right side of history! If we can not agree that sex between gents, or gals is human evolution, punish the tree dwelling louts!

They did it Boston!

Religious agencies in Illinois are the not the first to grapple with how to balance discrimination laws and doctrine. In Washington and Boston, Catholic Charities ended a combined two centuries of foster care and adoption services when it could not comply with state anti-discrimination laws after the approval of same-sex marriage.

Ecce Homo! -the Progressive Field Marshal for all agenda politics on this hot issue in Manya's Seek piece and make war offering:

Benjamin Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, an attorney who represents juvenile state wards as part of a court-monitored consent decree with DCFS, said limiting the pool of prospective foster care parents because certain religious traditions believe same-sex relationships are sinful is irresponsible when children are in need.

"We don't know for sure if a loving lesbian or gay family turned away from a discriminatory agency is necessarily going to go to another agency because of the disruption and harm caused to them," he said.

The religious institutions' policies might send a hurtful message to the large number of children in the foster care system who landed there after suffering neglect, abuse or rejection because they were gay, some experts say. Marlowe said 240 children out of more than 15,000 in the foster care system currently identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

Anytime someone uses 'hurtful' my neck hair shoots to the skies! Rock-solid hypocrisy is kicking down your door, Hickey!

Old Ben really means, "Screw the kids; Gays demand and must have!" Whatever they want.

Good luck.

Manya Brachear! Meet Father Robert Sirico - Catholic and Compassionate

I read quite a bit. No brag, just fact. In a family of skilled tradesmen, I remain the bookish goof. While my brother and scores of cousins can unclip a tape measure and artfully root out any problem in seconds with an application of muscle, toggle-bolts, sheet metal cutters, dry wall knives, plumber's dope and table saws, I remain a victim. I need to call a Tradesman.

I read Shakespeare, Virgil, Kant, Dante, Petrarch, Cicero, St. Augustine, Tommy Aquinas, Spinoza, Bellow, Tolstoy and Issac Bashevas Singer. I read while John, Mike, Red Pat, Brian, Barbara, Sheila, Kevin, Glen and Larry schooled themselves in HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, electrical math and fundamental chemistry to become engineers, carpenters, electricians, and pipe-fitters.

Readers often became priests. I went to priest school in high school. I translated Latin into English and developed rudimentary communications skills, but also learned that I was no where near cut-out for celibacy and by senior year exploded onto the co-educational Catholic social scene with some modest success.

Law? Perhaps. Teaching even better. I became a high school English teacher. It was a profession back then. I could read voraciously without being impugned as a loafing dope with his schnozzola glued to a page.

This morning I sweetened my sarcasm tooth with a gooey piece from the always daffy-taffy of Manya Brachear - the Chicago Tribune's Seeker. This kid is a champ and never a disappointment. Manya Branchear takes the road-less-travelled by anyone with a lick of common sense or shred of public understanding. Manya champions the goofball Sinsinawa Dominican - a catalog of goofs those babes be - nun who escorts kids to their appointed abortions at Planned Parenthood. That is like oozing with goodwill for that thoughtful religious seeker, Jihad Jane, who found Islam and decided to murder the Danish cartoonist. "Gee, she thinks outside of box!"

So does Manya - with great regularity.

Today Manya touts a Social Justice panel to be brought on the stage at North Park University. The panel is a Progressive parade of Lakota shamans, prayer-catcher shakers, Gender shrills, Race parsers and the lead- off Korean preacher. A Rainbow of Diversity! Edgy! Check out the line-up and the topics! Meet the Magnificent Social Seven! Hey, God love them all! I am sure that each and every pillar of Progressive Thought getting a paycheck from North Park is worth every dime.

1. Richard Twiss is a member of the Sicangu Lakota/Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. He is Co Founder, with his wife Katherine, and President of Wiconi International. Richard is committed to seeing Native people emerge as a dynamic voice for justice, reconciliation and healing around the world in the spirit of Jesus. He and Katherine have been married since 1976 and have raised four respectful sons and live in Vancouver, Washington.

Richard Twiss will be speaking on “Dancing Our Prayers” at a North Park Theological Seminary student chapel and dinner at 5:00 pm in Olsson Lounge. He will also be part of a panel discussion on Saturday’s Justice Training Workshops.
2.Andrea Smith teaches at Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside. She is the author of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances and is editor of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. She is co-founder of the Boarding School Healing Project and is US Coordinator of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.

Andrea Smith will be presenting on the non-profit industrial complex on Wednesday, April 14th at 7:00PM in Hamming Hall.

3.Peter Goodwin Heltzel is Associate Professor of Theology, New York Theological Seminary, and an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is the author of Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race and American Politics (Yale University Press, 2009). Peter Heltzel received his B.A. from Wheaton College, his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Boston University.

Peter Heltzel will be presenting on Jesus, Justice and Race on Thursday, April 15 at 9:00 am in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary (Nyvall Hall).

4. Dr. Mimi Haddad is president of Christians for Biblical Equality. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. Mimi is a founding member of the Evangelicals and Gender Study Group at the Evangelical Theological Society, and she served as the convener of the Issue Group 24 for the 2004 Lausanne III Committee for World Evangelization. She has written numerous articles and has contributed to eight books, most recently as an editor and a contributing author of Global Voices on Biblical Equality: Women and Men Serving Together in the Church. Mimi is also an adjunct assistant professor at Bethel University and an adjunct professor at North Park Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Dale, live in a mixed-income, inner-city housing development committed to creating greater financial stability in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr. Haddad will be presenting on Justice and Gender on Thursday, April 15 at 10:45 am in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary (Nyvall Hall).

5. Terry LeBlanc is Mi’kmaq /Acadian, from Listuguj First Nation and Campbellton, NB, Canada. He and his wife Bev are in their 38th year of marriage. They have three adult children engaged in various areas of indigenous mission in Canada, the USA and the Philippines. He is the founding Chairman and current CEO of NAIITS (North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies) and My People International, a capacity-building and training ministry with Indigenous peoples. In his role with these two organizations, Terry speaks often on the development of cultural bridges between Aboriginal people and the majority cultures in North America and elsewhere in the world. Terry also teaches as a sessional lecturer in Intercultural Studies and Theology at several colleges, seminaries and universities and, for a number of years has been a guest lecturer/speaker at educational institutions across Canada and the United States. He is currently serving as adjunct faculty in Theology and Intercultural Studies for two seminaries. He is a PhD Candidate in Intercultural Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky.

6.Lisa Sharon Harper is a Speaker / Activist / Author / Playwright / Poet. She is the author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…Or Democrat (The New Press) and is the Co-founder and Executive Director of NY Faith & Justice. NY Faith & Justice is at the hub of a new ecumenical movement in New York City to address issues of environmental injustice and violence in black and brown communities. Ms. Harper earned her master’s degree in Human Rights, with a concentration in Religion & the Media, from Columbia University in New York City. Ms. Harper is a graduate of the USC School of Theatre’s MFA Playwriting class of 1995. Her thesis play, An’ Push da Wind Down explores Ms. Harper’s own Cherokee/Chickasaw and African-American heritage. She is a featured op-ed writer for the God’s Politics blog and BeliefNet’s Progressive Revival blog.

Lisa will be responding at the Campus Justice Lecture on Thursday, April 15 with Terry LeBlanc on the topic of Environmental Justice at 7:00 pm in Hamming Hall. She will also present on the topic of Mobilizing for Environmental Justice at the Saturday Training Session.

7. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism and the author of The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (IVPress, 2009). Soong-Chan previously served as founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban, post-modern generation church in the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, MA. Soong-Chan currently serves on the boards of Sojourners, the Christian Community Development Association and the Catalyst Leadership Center. Soong-Chan presents content on the topics of racial reconciliation, social justice, and urban ministry at his blog.

4days4justice at North Park University is an attempt to hear from previously marginalized voices in both American society and the evangelical community.

We will have the chance to hear Native American Christians address the issue of environmental justice. (I still haven’t figured out how we ever had any serious dialogue about the environment without considering the perspective of the Native American community).

We will be involved in round table discussions (in a fishbowl style) on the topic of social justice with evangelicals from various ethnic communities. And we will offer workshops (particularly geared towards local churches) on various social justice topics during a one day training session on Saturday.

Will we answer all the questions about the role of evangelicals in the public realm.? No, but I hope that at least we’re asking the right questions.

Oooo! Ooooo! Me! Manya!
Are you soft? Christ on a Crutch! Let's look at the syllabus for the panelists and the panelists themselves Not a Moody Billy Sunday in that cavalcade of Evangelical Stars! No Babbit's in Manya's Bonnet.
No, Sir!
Gender Issues? Check!
Race Issues? Oh, Hell Yes!
Dancing to Justice? On the money! We got Acadians, Aboriginal concerns! No substance.

Social Justice begins and ends with the operation of human heart - it is charity and not policy.

Social Justice is very good. Societal manipulation is very, very bad and tends to run-in-place as opposed to move people forward.

I work social justice everyday. No brag; just fact. Dr. Jack O'Keefe ( City Colleges ret.) and Denny Conway ( CPS ret.) teach as volunteers in the kill-zone of Gresham every day, Manya. Read the Chicago Murder Boxscores.

I have a backlog of Campaign Leo and 21st Century enveleopes that I need to add to the EXCELL spread sheets - amounting to more than $ 30,000 from $50,100, 200,500, 1,000 gifts by men with White Guy Zipcodes - 60643, 60655, 60638, 60453, 60462 & etc.

That's social justice, Kiddo. No Prayer Catchers, just envelopes with dough. No strings, no plaques, no articles, no Love Offerings expected. Gifts of human heart given freely.

The Panel at North Park will be swell: Lakota incantations and prayers out of the William Least-Heat Moon catalog. When the Beaver returns to Chicago River - Once Debra Shore and the Gay Lesbian Transgender Bi-Sexual Water Reclamation District reverses the flow of the River -Only Then - will my heart soar light Hawk and wing with the Great Spirit!

Manya, if you expect to to get to the nub of social justice, read Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute. Thus!

The problem here is the slick move from personal ethics to public policy. What is required of us as individuals may or may not translate into a civic policy priority. In the case of the welfare state, it is possible to argue that it does great good (though I would dispute that). Whether it does or does not, however, a government program effects nothing toward fulfilling the Gospel requirement that we give of our own time and income toward assisting the poor.

The reason has to do with matters of the human heart. If we are required to do anything by law, and thereby forced by public authority to undertake some action, we comply because we must. That we go along with the demand is no great credit to our sense of humanitarianism or charity. The impulse here is essentially one of fear: we know that if we fail to give, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of the state.

Remember that the government has no money, no resources, of its own. Everything it has it must take from the private sector, which is the engine of wealth creation. If we can imagine a world in which there is no private sector at all, we can know with certainty that it would be a world of bare subsistence at best: universal impoverishment.

Wealthy societies today can afford to create large welfare states while avoiding that fate. But let us never forget the funds that make it possible do not appear as if by magic. They are taken from others without their active consent except in the most abstract sense that people might vote for them.

I cannot see how this method of redistributing wealth has anything to do with the Gospel. Jesus never called on public authority to enact welfare programs. He never demanded that his followers form a political movement to tax and spend. Nor did he say that the property of the rich must always be forcibly expropriated. He called for a change in the human heart, not a change in legislation. There is a massive difference.

You see, Manya. When a job needs to get done, I am the sic-and-fetch guy - "Paddy, go out to the truck and bring in the black box with the green handle. Don't worry about what's in it we trained with the tools and you might have read about them in Dickens - they are called adaptable bits. Black box -green handle. Don't get lost"

Father Sirico is the tradesman as far as Social Justice goes. We live social justice because we go to the right tradesman. Look for the Union Label, Manya.

http://www.northpark.edu/4days4justice

Lefties Make Catholics Target # 1.

The Catholic Church stands to bear constant poundings by the corporate media and Progressive Leftists.

Approaching Palm Sunday and following Pope Benedict XVI's heroic and compassioante apology concerning pedophelia in Ireland, Germany and the United States - the lawsuit corporation SNAP ( Survivors Network Abused by Priests) which fronts for Lawyer Jeff Anderson, an old hippie who made a cottage industry of suing the Catholic Church in America with the full support of the media dashed off to Rome; Bart Stupak played the Pro Life Judas Goat for the Progressives, a Catholic father gets bashed by Tribune's religion writer and house nitwit Manya Brachear because he wants to take his daughter to Easter Services, but Brachear wants readers to know that the Dad has Drew Peterson's Lawyer! Manya should just burn down a Catholic Church ala Oliver Cromwell or Seek another line of work.

Manya is not alone, Boys and Girls!

Here's ten pages of Leftist Anti-Catholic News from Google -

Telegraph.co.uk Wis. man: Abuse by priest ruined faith in church‎
The Associated Press - 45 minutes ago

MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin man says he lost all faith in the Catholic church after being abused by a priest who's at the center of a scandal about the way the ...
Pope Benedict faces child abuse cover-up queries‎ - BBC News
Abuse Scandal's Ripples Spread Across Europe‎ - New York Times
US church's abuse scandal hits Pope‎ - The Australian
BusinessWeek - Los Angeles Times
all 924 news articles »


Telegraph.co.uk Our View- Catholic Church needs administrative reform‎
Daily 49er - 10 hours ago

Ireland, a country of merely 4 million, has had to settle 13000 child abuse cases, awarding nearly $1 billion in losses to the Catholic Church. ...
Sinead O'Connor: 'There should be a full criminal investigation of ...‎ - Los Angeles Times
Bishop John Magee quits after mishandling sex abuse‎ - Mirror.co.uk
Irish Bishop John Magee Resigns, Apologizes in Catholic Sex Abuse ...‎ - Right Pundits
FOXNews (blog) - Telegraph.co.uk
all 557 news articles »


Globe and Mail Lesbians and the Church of Raised Catholics‎
Huffington Post (blog) - 22 hours ago

With depressing regularity, the men who run the Catholic Church do something that reminds me of why I'm part of the fastest growing religion in the country: ...

Video: Pope's Apology Not Enough? CBS
Catholic Church says reported US cases of child sex abuse lowest ...‎ - Washington Post
Catholic Abuse Accusations Declined in 2009‎ - New York Times
Pacific News Center - The Associated Press
all 2974 news articles »


Washington Post Germans abandon Catholic Church‎
Sydney Morning Herald - Allan Hall - 2 hours ago

BERLIN: Trust in the Catholic Church in Germany has plummeted since the child sexual abuse scandal. Barely one in six Germans now say they have confidence ...
Father Raymond J. de Souza: Culture change in the Church‎ - National Post (blog)
Ireland's Catholic primate may have to quit‎ - The Australian
Catholic Church _good news and bad news‎ - Dailyrecord.com
Jackson Sun - RH Reality Check (blog)
all 106 news articles »


Linn County News Fairfax County religion notes‎
Washington Post - 7 hours ago

St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, 3700 Old Lee Hwy., Fairfax, will host a program, "The Virtuous Life: Challenging the Modern Culture," at 7:30 pm Saturday ...
Holy Week masses and services planned‎ - NorthJersey.com
Holy Week schedule First Congregational Church - Fairhaven‎ - Wicked Local Marion
all 43 news articles »


Catholic News Service “They are willing to trivialize the abortion issue”‎
California Catholic Daily - 7 hours ago

Under the heading “Fissure within Church,” Wesolek wrote, “The American Catholic Church is fractured and splintering with a deep ideological divide ...
American Catholic Bishops…Loudly Shout Out the Catholic Point of View!‎ - Blogger News Network (blog)
Difference worth noting‎ - Elmira Star-Gazette
Divide between bishops and sisters on health care ideological ...‎ - Catholic News Agency
The Catholic Transcript - Niagara Gazette
all 76 news articles »


msnbc.com (blog) New abuse charges against Catholic clergy in Germany‎
Reuters - Christopher Lawton - Tom Heneghan - 2 days ago

... in the latest cases damaging the Catholic Church's image in Germany. The diocese vowed to hand any concrete criminal evidence to the public prosecutor, ...
Church Adds More Abuse Cases to Its Inquiry in Germany‎ - New York Times
'The Confession' tackles priest abuse‎ - msnbc.com (blog)
German Church Scandal Widens‎ - Wall Street Journal
Washington Post - CNN
all 271 news articles »

Temple Beth El rabbi to lead Passover Seder at Catholic church‎
Bradenton Herald - Richard Dymond - 10 hours ago

Clark is also a member of the Catholic church's New Beginnings group, which got the idea to invite the rabbi. “I am so excited about it,” Clark said. ...

Child Abuse Leaves Irish Churches Scouring for Money‎
BusinessWeek - Colm Heatley - Louisa Fahy - 2 hours ago

Pope Benedict XVI said on March 20 that Roman Catholic church leaders in Ireland “betrayed the trust” of parishioners after a series of reports in the past ...


Lez Get Real Catholic Church quietly expelling and punishing children, homeless‎
Irish Central - Cahir O'Doherty - 17 hours ago

Whilst we've all been appalled by the international scope and scale of the decades long abuses against children in the Catholic Church in Europe something ...
Homeless Aid Agency Loses Catholic $$ Over Pro-Marriage Support‎ - EDGE Boston
Call To Help, Call To Action- Preble Street's Homeless Voices for ...‎ - Lez Get Real
Diocese penalizes homeless aid group‎ - Press Herald
all 16 news articles »



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No one said being a Catholic was easy - that's being a Unitarian.

Tribune's Seeker Seeking Seekers Who Seek Same: Manya Brachear's Catholic Health Debate is a Monologue

Manya Brachear* is never a disappointment. The earnest, really, really, really interested Religion columnist and Lloyd Garrison Level No Popery Here Medill Mouthpiece has offered another of her very special earnest pieces on the Obama Care Bill.

Manya is from the school of journalism ( Progressive Doctrinaire) that likes to get every one with the exact same point of view for thematic and narrative issue overkill.

Catholics ( Catholics United and Sister Donna Quinn and Liberation Theology Marxist Bob Bossie) are trotted out to help Manya.

On Saturday, Catholics United , a non-profit that promotes social justice, launched a television campaign to counter claims that the legislation, if approved, will provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions. The ad is airing in, among others, Illinois Democrat Dan Lipinski’s congressional district.

“As a lifelong advocate for health care reform, I call on Congressman Lipinski to do what’s best for hard working people of Illinois and support reform,” said the Rev. Bob Bossie, a religious order priest in Chicago. “The reform bill before the House will save lives, support families and uphold existing laws which prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for abortions.”

Bossie concedes he is “quite unhappy” with the legislation. But he finds the cardinal’s hard line unfortunate.

“I respect the cardinal’s position, but at this particular juncture on the road something is better than nothing,” he said. “I think it’s just the beginning.”

Meanwhile, 60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 Catholic nuns side with the Catholic Health Association, saying a yes vote is imperative.

“It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments – $250 million – in support of pregnant women,” the nuns wrote. “This is the REAL pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it.”

But there’s one nun that does not support the bill.

Dominican sister and activist Donna Quinn said restrictions on abortion go too far. She said national health care must include “Medicaid funding for a woman on Medicaid … who chooses this legal medical procedure.”

“If this Health Care ‘Reform’ does pass we all know that gender discrimination was necessary to do so,” Quinn said. “Women deserve better.”

What do you think?

Let's see here. Bob Bossie is a Marxist. Sister Donna Quinn works for Planned Parenthood and is a goofball. Catholics United are a PAC paid for by George Soros.


Gee, Manya, thanks for asking! I think that you are not all that good at your job, but that is Okay! Neither are your editors!

* Manya Brachear joined the Chicago Tribune in June 2003. As one of the paper's religion reporters, she has helped chronicle the papal transition from Rome, the Dalai Lama's visit to Chicago, Protestant debates about gay clergy, progress and pitfalls of interfaith dialogue and the emerging role of religion in American politics. Brachear earned a bachelor's degree from Appalachian State University and masters' degrees in journalism and religious studies from Columbia University. She also has written for Time magazine, The Dallas Morning News, Beliefnet.com and the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

Chicago Tribune's Seeker Manya Brachear - Tossing Gasoline on a Catholic Votive Candles - Thanks for your Help Seeker

Manya Brachear is the earnest imported Chicago Religion Talent for the "Not to Be Out-Stupided by the Chicago Sun Times" Chicago Tribune. With all of the remarkable Catholic, Jewish and Protestant local talent the Medill Nativists needed to go out of town to get someone to kick at people's faith. Manya is good'un.

Manya likes her religion ( 'spiritual but not really anything too confining')you know -really Richard Gere-ishly Bono-magnifico! Hip.

Kid, this is Chicago. Look around you. Every Block the big buildings with pointy towers and crosses -those are Churches - mostly Catholic. Lot's of Catholics in Chicago, Manya. There are parishes of every ethnic niche - hence the celebration of diversity is the work of our local nitwits. We enjoy Polish, Italian, Czech, Croatian, Ukranian as visitors usually. I go to Mass - on Sundays and Holy Days at Scared Heart an old French Mission with 1,2, 3rd Genration Catholic Americans. I also go to Latin Mass at St. John Cantius on Chicago & Sangamon for devotional giggles.

Polish Masses are rich and wonderful; Lithuanian the same; Italian you bet. Hit Father Gene Smith's Gaelic Mass at St. Barnabas. Attend a real old timey Tridentine Mass at St. John Cantius - pure dignity and majesty, but alas. No condoms will be distributed in keeping with the Planned Parenthood Celebration of National Condom Week.

Manya Brachear belongs to the American Culture that banishes Nativity Scenes and Celebrates the distribution of rubbers. True to her faith, doctrine and paycheck, Manya takes a story that celebrates the return of fallen faithful to the Catholic Church and saddles it with the woe and a litany of wrongs.

In order to return to the pews, Cindy Colman first must grapple with the Roman Catholic Church's failure to forgive, alienating her and her mother from the institution that generations of their family have called home.

"I think I'm still in the process," said Colman, 35 of Naperville. "I'm at that point where I'm coming back to learn more and understand the whole faith … It's true. At my core, I know that."

After fleeing an abusive husband more than 30 years ago, Colman's mother chose to raise her daughter Lutheran. Though she agreed to annul her previous marriage, the Catholic Church insisted on denying her the sacraments when her new husband declined to annul his marriage.

Colman has since agonized about the way her mother has been treated. Still, she yearns to reconcile with the church where she was baptized. She also longs to give her children the foundation she missed.

Agony goes with living. Life is tough. If it is too tough to go Home. Too bad.

Catholics welcome everyone. Every Sunday. No locks, or guards on the doors. I am sure Mrs. Colman regrets chatting with Manya. I always seem to have those regrets with some journalists. Manya is easy to spot however. Manya Brachear is a well scrubbed, wide-eyed unblinking dead-on agendanista. Her prose is the same and almost as flat and one -dimensional.

The Sun Times already listed the rant of some jerk from Riverside. Not to be outdown, Joe Medill's anti-Catholic Editorial Board pushed Manya on the Campaign Catholics Come Home .

Anyone with any brains at the Archdiocese would put Manya's calls on the long hold. You know the one -"Your Call is very important to us, Please wait on the line; your call will be answered in the order it was received; please hold on. . . ." - (bass ostinato)

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Drum Solo -

{Lunch Break}

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Please wait your call . . .
Give the Tribune and Manya Brachear nothing. They have done plenty. Manya, try burning down a church. It would be so Progressively Activist!

Meet Chicago Media Religion Op Eder :Manya False Decretals

Meet Chicago's Two Published Religion Thinkers who are One Person in the Same! The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times Really, really care about Religion - not Catholics or Jews or Moslems - real religion. Like Dr. Phil.

Meet Manya False-Decretals -The Quester:

Boy did the life spiritual get a boost this weekend! The Germans are thinking about banning Red Bull and That's Just Mean.

Mean People Suck. don't you think? I do. God means alot to me as long as she's not judgmental and stuff. Who's to say?

I went to Obermann University and smoked alot of hemp which helps old people with bad eyes and really cool people. I read all the stuff in the text books about the Scrolls an Arab boy found in the desert and they were Essenes* and Jesus was probably an Essene, unless you think otherwise. My coolest Prof was kicked out of the Air Force and went to Cuba to cut Cane and he said that Jesus was an Essene - they're like monks, but Jewish.

Madonna is like 50 and still so Hot, because she is spiritual. In a good way and not all doctrine icky.


My boyfriend, who was gay, but is so cool about it and not braggy, says all religion is about power. He's right. What would happen if we had a Civil Union? Not mean or nothing, but civil; that would be so chill. Cats are chill.

I like the way cats don't worry about going to church - but are soooo spiritual and Egyptian-like.

That made me think about what Bono said to Oprah -"Our generation will be remembered for the Internet, for the war against terror, and for how we let an entire continent burst into flames while we stood around with watering cans—or not,"

That was so cool I could not finish my Big Gulp. That's why I am no longer a Lakota Sioux. They are too bound by rules and they called me Thasintkala waksu
So I thought, Judas was probably doing the right thing because after all, with Jesus getting busted by the 'Garlic Noses' as Pastor Wright so rightly said, we would not have Jesus as a God and stuff. Atheist Bus Companies are Nice.

I don't think people need any more Memorial Day stuff, because it is about War. Don't you think? We should not encourage War by Honoring Baby Killers - so we won't. I like Peace Heroes, like Judas. He got Jesus where he is. And - Good Women Kill Babies before they are babies and Good Men help them.

Judas was an activist. He was really helping people and really cared about people.

That is all that matters

*http://www.essenespirit.com/

Click my post title for a genuine atrocity.