Protests outside the Mormon Church

I found this article on The New York Times website. There have been numerous protests by gay rights activists outside Mormon churches, including one in NYC last night. According to the data, Mormons were big funders of the Yes on Prop 8 vote.

I think, however, that protests outside a church, any church, will do little more than to get media attention at this stage. First, although the Mormon church actively sought to pass this piece of legislation, it's not the New Yorkers that voted in favor of Prop 8. I even wonder how much funding came from NYC?

Second, although I am disgusted by the vote, I don't think protesting outside a church is going to change anyone's mind inside the church. The Yes on Prop 8 campaign was not entirely truthful, but that's how political campaigns are run. They raised more money than our side and obviously ran a better campaign.

And, finally, I think a big reason this piece of legislation passed was due to the silence and lack of commitment by the Obama-Biden campaign. Towards the end of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and Joe Biden both mentioned in almost a whisper that they opposed Prop 8. But, they did nothing to campaign against it. In a sad way, they probably felt they couldn't. The major presidential candidate who is already being labeled as too liberal would have difficulty shaking off that label if they actively campaigned against Prop 8. 59% of Catholics voted for Obama in California. But 64% of Catholics voted FOR Prop 8. Weekly church-goers who voted for Obama, supported Prop 8 with an 84% of the vote. 70% of African-Americans who voted for Barack Obama, voted Yes on 8. Read more here and here.

So, I don't think protesting the churches will actually get us anywhere except on TV and it may help to build the anti-gay marriage coffers in the long run. Instead we should focus on building a campaign for the next proposition, for the next court battle, try and get the President-elect's support, and raising more money now.

Gay Activists Rally Outside Mormon Temple in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) -- Carrying signs reading ''Love not H8'' and ''Did you cast a ballot or a stone?'', a large crowd of gay-marriage supporters gathered outside a Mormon temple to protest the church's endorsement of a same-sex marriage ban in California.

The rally Wednesday night outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple came hours after gay couples exchanged vows for the first time in Connecticut amid cheers and tears of joy.

The milestone did not ease the sting of a major loss for gay-marriage supporters last week. Gay activists planned protests across the country over the vote that took away their right to wed in California.

In the Upper West Side of Manhattan, demonstrators chanted ''Shame on you!'' outside the temple. Leaders of the Mormon church had encouraged members to support passage of California's Proposition 8, a referendum banning same-sex marriage.

''I'm fed up and disgusted with religious institutions taking political stances and calling them moral when it's nothing but politics,'' said Dennis Williams, 36. ''Meanwhile they enjoy tax-free status while trying to deny me rights that should be mine at the state and federal level.''

Church spokesman Michael Otterson said that while citizens have the right to protest, he was ''puzzled'' and ''disturbed'' by the gathering since the majority of California's voters had approved the amendment.

''This was a very broad-based coalition that defended traditional marriage in a free and democratic election,'' Otterson said, referring to the numerous religious and social conservative groups that sponsored Proposition 8.

Organizers of the rally estimated at least 10,000 people participated. Police said they could not give a crowd estimate.

Gay-marriage advocates said they were planning nationwide demonstrations this weekend in more than 175 cities and outside the U.S. Capitol. A Seattle blogger was trying to organize simultaneous protests outside statehouses and city halls in every state Saturday.

Earlier in Connecticut, Jody Mock and Elizabeth Kerrigan emerged from Town Hall in West Hartford to the cheers of about 150 people and waved their marriage license high. The couple led the lawsuit that overturned the state law.

''We feel very fortunate to live in the state of Connecticut, where marriage equality is valued, and hopefully other states will also do what is fair,'' Kerrigan said.

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 10 that same-sex couples have the right to wed rather than accept a 2005 civil union law designed to give them the same rights as married couples. A lower-court judge entered a final order permitting same-sex marriage Wednesday morning. Massachusetts is the only other state that allows gay marriages.

Connecticut officials had no information Wednesday on how many marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples. According to the state public health department, 2,032 civil union licenses were issued between October 2005 and July 2008.

Like the highest courts in Connecticut and Massachusetts, the California Supreme Court ruled this spring that same-sex marriage is legal. After about 18,000 such unions were conducted in California, however, its voters last week approved Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment.

Gay rights groups said Wednesday they may ask California voters to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage if legal challenges to Proposition 8 are unsuccessful.

The California vote has sparked protests in several states, many targeting Mormon churches. Some have been vandalized.

Activists also are aiming boycotts and protests at businesses and individuals who contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8.

God is the ultimate judge

There's an internal fight brewing within the Catholic Church. Magdalene's Egg blogger, Father Anonymous, notes that it's not the first time in Church history.

On one side you have the hierarchy and conservative base claiming a moral argument in their support of life. To that end, they claim that voting for a supporter of abortion rights amounts to endorsing "homicide."

On the other side, you have a growing attempt by liberal Catholic groups arguing that the Democratic Party better reflects the full spectrum of Catholic teachings because they take into consideration ALL human life.

The NY Times wrote about it today. It seems that the Catholic Church is moving away from the business of informing consciences and more into the business of telling people how to vote. So, a group of nuns, clergy, and laity are arguing on the side of the individual's right to right to act according to one's conscience.

Deacon Greg Kandra pointed to this article on conscience by a retired priest:

Are bishops making Democratic Catholics choose?

Published:Sunday, October 5, 2008

By The Rev. EMMETT COYNE

On Oct. 2, I was a guest at the First Friday Club of Greater Youngstown which meets on the First Thursday of each month. “Preparing to Vote in 2008 Presidential Elections,” was the timely topic, and the presenter was Jim Tobin, associate director of the Ohio Catholic Conference Social Concerns Department in Columbus.

He sought carefully to nuance his presentation to avoid an obvious partisan position. A priest friend of mine who left active ministry in Washington, D.C., eight or 10 years ago had an exit interview with the cardinal. The cardinal asked him why he was leaving. He replied that there was no room for him in the Catholic Church. The cardinal was puzzled and asked what he meant. He replied: “I’m a Democrat.”

In the past there was the perception that the hierarchy in the United States tilted toward the Democrats. In these latter days the perception is the hierarchy tilts toward the Republicans as Democrats are viewed as the party of pro-choice and the Republicans, pro-life. Any American bishop today who comes out publicly to identify with a Democratic candidate would be shunned by his fellow bishops. Popes, cardinals, bishops have not been shy, though, about photo ops with Republican politicians, particularly as they preen being anti-pro-choice. “Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?” was the title of a 2006 book to which the author answered with a resounding no.

Jim Tobin followed carefully the script of the American Bishops, “The Challenge of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” He attempted to acknowledge Catholic voters have a thicket of moral issues to cut through, yet abortion hovered above them all. Reflecting the bishops’ exposition, he underscored that all issues do not carry the same moral weigh.

Echoing the bishops, he noted Catholics have to act according to a well-formed conscience. A well-formed conscience, according to the bishops, is interpreted as being fashioned by Catholic moral teaching. Historically, the institutional church did not articulate clearly and concisely, unambiguously and unequivocally its understanding of moral positions. Through centuries it clarified positions. It would like members to think otherwise. When the Church governed the Papal States it routinely condoned capital punishment, a position from which it has shifted.

One’s conscience is one’s own. Ultimately, we live and die as a unique person if we are true to our own conscience. While we seek input from sources outside of self, in the end we have to decide for ourselves. Following the conscientious decision of another is not necessarily being true to self.

Conscience trumps hierarchy

Franz Jagerstatter was an Austrian farmer during the Third Reich. As a father of three daughters he was inducted for military service. He refused, saying Hitler’s wars were immoral. Even his bishop attempted to persuade him to comply “for the good of the Fatherland.” He remained steadfast and was eventually beheaded in a Berlin prison. Jagerstatter, a simply Catholic farmer, was able to conclude Hitler’s wars were immoral while the German-Austrian bishops were unable. They counseled compliance not dissent. He was true to his conscience, despite the bishops and today is being considered a saint, like Thomas More, faithful to his conscience.

Bishops indeed have a task to teach and educate, but they cannot usurp the role of judge of another’s conscience. That is domain of God alone. Unfortunately, today, they are perceived as being the judge of others’ conscience, particularly as they have politicized the Eucharist. They are determining who has a right to receive or not. They have sadly undermined their role as teachers by selective unfairness. They are slow to deny Communion to politicians who favor capital punishment, support an immoral war, the inequity of income distribution, etc.

The prayer a Catholic prays before receiving Communion is, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you.” But now a Catholic needs to pass judgment on having a well-formed conscience before proceeding to receive Communion (praying now, “Lord, I am worthy!”).

Cardinal Newman’s Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is an effort to discern a personal conscience. He concludes the letter: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts, (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink — to the Pope, if you please — still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.” Could not one today replace pope with bishops?

The present tilt of the American bishops to intimidate Catholics against supporting Democratic candidates by implying that they cannot possibly have a well-formed conscience undermines the individual’s right to act according to one’s conscience. It usurps God as the ultimate judge.

Goose the throttles

I found this NY Times article via New Advent. It seems the pilots will miss Shea Stadium a lot:

September 26, 2008

To Pilots, Shea Is Less Ballpark Than Landmark

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

For 44 years, the procession of planes from nearby La Guardia Airport has contributed to an unusual ballpark soundtrack at Shea Stadium, the roar of jet engines a thousand feet above blending with the cracks of bats and the cries from hot dog vendors.

With the stadium set to shut its gates for the final time — possibly Sunday, if the Mets fail to reach the playoffs — the spectators who can claim perhaps the most peculiar relationship with the ballpark may be airline pilots who, with a bird’s-eye peek at the field through cockpit windows, have participated in that uncommon convergence of baseball and aviation.

“You are so low and close you can see it and almost smell it,” said Glen Millen, who estimates that he has flown into and out of La Guardia 1,800 times since he began flying for American Airlines in 1986.

La Guardia is one of the few airports in the country where pilots use land markers instead of instruments to guide their landings, along with Seattle (a shopping mall) and Washington (a river). Shea Stadium, which from the sky looks like a blue circle with a green center, is a primary runway guidepost. For one of the more common landing routes, pilots are instructed to follow the Long Island Expressway until they arrive at the eastern side of the stadium, at which point they bank the plane left around the outfield wall and head straight for Runway 31.

Among pilots and air-traffic controllers, it is known as the “expressway visual approach.”

“We make a sweeping turn around Shea Stadium to land, and you bank the airplane and out of the corner of your eye you can see the scoreboard and the players,” said Joe Romanko, a pilot with American Airlines since 1990, who estimated that he had taken off from and landed at La Guardia 1,000 times.

“As you start coming around from right field to center field around the stadium, the fact that there is no back on the stadium allows you to see all the way in,” Romanko added, referring to Shea’s C-shape design. “It’s more dramatic at night because you track the lights on the stadium from way out. You can follow the lights all the way in and then you see the grass and the players.”

In 1964, the Mets’ first season at Shea, a pilot got an even closer look. He mistook the lights on top of the stadium for the runway and nearly hit it as the team took batting practice before a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, according to sportswriters who covered the Mets that season and a player on the field that day.

Bill Wakefield, a relief pitcher with the Mets in ’64, said Cardinals players chided him after the near miss. “They came up to me and rolled their eyes and said, ‘How can you play in this stadium?’ ” he said.

Until the 1980s, when radios that were used in cockpits to pick up transmitters began to be phased out, some pilots would tune them to the local broadcasts of the Mets’ games during landing and take-off.

“You would dial in and you could hear your plane fly over,” said Sam Mayer, a pilot with American Airlines since 1990. “There were guys who would goose the throttles to make a louder noise so they could hear themselves on the radio.”

The expressway visual approach, used for about a quarter of commercial landings, shortens trips for planes approaching from the south, saving pilots from having to circle over the Long Island Sound before making a straight approach using instruments. The landing is done without instruments only when visibility is high.

Considering the unusual relationship between airport and ballpark, perhaps it was inevitable that a pilot looking down on Shea would share a name with one of the biggest stars on the field below. Mike Piazza, a first officer for Delta Airlines, says he has landed at La Guardia about 60 times, including trips earlier this decade when another Mike Piazza was the Mets’ top slugger.

“Especially back in 2001 and 2002, there were times we just flew over the stadium we would say, ‘Mike Piazza is playing baseball and in the airplane,’ ” said Piazza the pilot, who is based in Atlanta. “I would say goodbye to everyone when they got off the plane and they would grab my name tag to check my name.”

Next season, Piazza and other pilots will have nearly the same vantage point for games at Citi Field, the Mets’ new home, which is being built next to Shea in its old parking lot.

“It will be a little trial and error the first few times as we learn how far we need to be from Citi Field after Shea is gone,” Mayer said.

“One of your familiar landmarks and orientation points won’t be there anymore.”

Of course, some of the pilots have experienced Shea the more conventional way, as fans in the seats. During many of his approaches to La Guardia, Romanko said, his mind wandered back to when he sat in the stands at Shea as a child.

“It brings up memories for me,” he said. “There is some kid probably watching me coming around.”

This is my old church!

From the NY Times. This is the Church where Wendy and I plan on having our Catholic ceremony in June. If you ever get the chance, I do recommend that everyone try the Sunday 6pm Jazz Mass at the Church of the Ascension.

April 16, 2008

Changing With Times, a Parish Prospers

By JENNIFER MEDINA

The morning service begins with the swift tap-tap-tap of drums, accented with horns. “El Señor es mi pastor,” the band sings out, echoed by loud claps from the pews.

Hours later, another set of parishioners listens in reverent silence to an operatic rendition of “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain” as the faint sweet smoke of incense floats above.

That evening, yet another band belts out, “People get ready, there’s a train comin’ — all you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’,” to the thumping bass of a three-piece jazz combo.

Three services, three music styles, three very different congregations, one parish: Church of the Ascension on the Upper West Side.

At a time when the Roman Catholic Church is grappling with sexual abuse scandals, a shortage of priests and the consolidating of churches and schools in many urban areas, including dozens in New York City, Ascension stands as just one example of a parish that remains a vibrant presence in the lives of its ever-changing — and still growing — congregation.

The church has remained relevant for more than 1,500 parishioners not just by varying music styles, but by adapting to the shifting neighborhood and times. At a shrine in one corner of the church, there are pictures of Virgin Marys from across the world. A martini night has replaced coffee hour after Sunday evening Mass. There are citizenship and English classes for immigrants, an active lay leadership and welcoming messages to gays and lesbians.

“We have a great richness in the city here, in our neighborhood, and that has to be reflected in our parish, in our worship,” said the Rev. John P. Duffell, the pastor. “You have to observe and respond to what you have and see.”

In many ways, Father Duffell, 64, strays from the orthodoxy and formality preached by Pope Benedict XVI, who arrives in New York City on Friday. But the pope is also expected to praise the vibrancy of the American church; and in New York City, with 2.5 million to 3 million Roman Catholics, few parishes are as alive as Ascension.

Tucked between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue on 107th Street, the parish draws Latino immigrants, scholars with ties to Columbia University nearby and a growing number of affluent young professionals who have moved into the neighborhood in recent years.

For the young, there are more avant-garde ways of worship, like the Sunday evening jazz Mass. Started in 1999, the service attracts 200 to 300 people, and a vast majority are under 40. The jazz service has all the traditional rites, and Father Duffell delivers a nearly identical homily as at the more formal morning service. But instead of a choir there is a jazz trio, and parishioners are often young Catholics who are attending Mass for the first time in years.

“It doesn’t feel like you’re in church. For some people that’s a bad thing, but for a lot of us, it’s a great and exciting feeling,” said Rosa Arenas, 33, a legal translator who grew up in the neighborhood and returned to the parish as an adult. “This is my sanctuary, at any time. There’s just a sense of hope and renewal that I have every time I walk in.”

Several months after the jazz service began, a woman told Father Duffell that she enjoyed the service so much she felt she should have a martini in hand. The next week, Father Duffell announced from the pulpit that he was looking for volunteers to organize a martini night. By the time Mass had ended, he said, a committee had already formed.

The monthly event now includes an elaborate potluck dinner and attracts hundreds of people, many nonmembers and even non-Catholics. That sort of ad hoc appeal is essential to the growth of Ascension.

Father Duffell has conspicuously reached out to such young people, in often very simple ways. Every week, he ends Mass by asking for first-time visitors to announce where they are from, then leads the congregation in a round of applause to welcome them.

The informational fliers for the church proclaim, “No matter your age, your race, your gender or your sexual orientation, there is a place for you at Ascension.” In his speeches each week, Father Duffell expresses the same sentiment, each time mentioning sexual orientation. The message is not lost on the parishioners, gay or straight.

“Regardless of the issue of homosexuality, I’ve always been a practicing Catholic — I took what I wanted and left the rest, so to speak,” said John Gasdaska, a 43-year-old real estate agent who has attended Ascension since he moved to the neighborhood with his partner in 2000. “But the simple fact that he includes talking openly about that makes a world of difference. There’s just no question that everyone is included in the message of Christ.”

Altragracia Hiraldo echoed Mr. Gasdaska’s views. Since moving to the neighborhood after emigrating from the Dominican Republic, Ms. Hiraldo has attended Ascension for more than three decades and says it has changed “100 percent.”

“We did not have enough people; there were no Americans, just Dominicans and maybe some Puerto Ricans,” she said. “Now, it’s everybody: Americans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, everyone.”

More importantly, she said, the attitudes have changed.

“People are not afraid of each other, because everyone knows this is all of our church,” she said.

Still, there are undeniable cultural divides, largely because of language. Many of the parishioners who attend the Spanish services are older and do not speak English, and so have little interaction with the younger English-speaking members of the church, aside from occasional bilingual services, like those during Christmas and Easter Week.

On a recent Sunday morning, as the 9:30 a.m. Spanish Mass let out and the 11 a.m. English Mass was about to begin, there were scattered greetings between the two groups, but mostly they passed each other on the steps without much acknowledgment. A woman selling hot chocolate and coffee for $1, shouted “chocolate y café,” and a small group of young men walked in holding cups from Starbucks.

Joe Hickey, the president of the church’s newly established parish council, is working with others to integrate Spanish and English speakers, perhaps by adding more bilingual services. Mr. Hickey views it as a model for the entire church.

“What we don’t have here is Latinos or anyone else voting with their feet and leaving,” Mr. Hickey said. “To be able to have all these people coexist is a microcosm of what the church is facing all over the world.”

In some sense, the outreach and diversity in the church is a result of Father Duffell’s own religious philosophy. While some view the Catholic Church as a tightrope, he sees it as a “very broad river, with some to the right and some to the left.”

“There are some who cling to the rocks as long as they can, and others who just go with the flow,” he said during an interview in his rectory living room.

He still harbors some reservations about Pope Benedict’s conservative history, but says he has been pleasantly surprised.

Father Duffell has placed a premium on persuading more parishioners to be involved in formal church programs and the day-to-day running of the church. Edwin Madera, who grew up attending Ascension and its school and returned to the neighborhood after graduating from Boston College, was just appointed as the youth minister of the parish. Mr. Gasdaska is considering restarting a gay and lesbian ministry. Ms. Hiraldo is looking for new classes to reach out to more recent immigrants.

“We know the importance of being involved, not just sitting in Mass and saying O.K., bye-bye,” Ms. Hiraldo said. “This is our church.”