Memory Eternal

Grant rest O Lord to the souls of thy servants who have departed this life in the service of our country, and make their memory to be eternal.

Western Rite news from ROCOR

This from Fr. Aidan Keller (ROCOR) via the Use of Sarum Yahoo Group.

By a decision of the Synod of Bishops, all Western rite communities of our Church, wheresoever they may be, are directly under the authority of the Metropolitan, and not the local ruling bishop. That is, all Western rite communities have been made stavropigial.

The Russian Orthodox Church will sever ties with the German Evangelical Church

The Russian Orthodox Church may sever relations with the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), a major Protestant church of Western Europe that has elected a woman to chair the EKD's council.

The Orthodox clergy say this runs counter to evangelical principles. Analysts fear this could provoke a big inter-faith conflict.

Bishop Margot Kassmann, the first woman to lead the Evangelical Church in Germany, which unites some 24 million Protestants of more than 20 Lutheran and Reformed churches, was elected at the council's meeting on October 28. The 51-year-old bishop of Hanover is divorced and has four daughters.

"We plan to celebrate 50 years of dialog with the German Lutheran Church in late November and early December," Hilarion, the bishop of Volokolamsk and head of the Moscow patriarchy's external church relations department, said on Wednesday. "The celebrations will also mark the end of that dialog."

The Russian Orthodox Church does not accept female clergy.

"A female bishop is a contradiction of the evangelical principles," said Georgy Zavershinsky, the PR head of the external church relations department. "Therefore, there can be no church relations between us. We will most likely have to deal with their church as with a public organization."

Russian Lutherans support the arguments of the Russian Orthodox Church. Alexander Prilutsky, chief secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria (Russia), said female bishops were evidence of "a crisis in the Western society."

"Our relations with Western Protestants have recently become more complicated because of their liberal theological practices," said Bishop Konstantin Bendas, director for temporal affairs at the Russian Associated Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith. "Unfortunately, the West is departing from the evangelical principles. Sweden, for example, has deviated the most by electing a lesbian bishop."

If the inter-faith dialog stops, "this could lead to severance of diplomatic relations between German Christians and the Russian Orthodox Church," said Roman Lunkin, director of the Institute of Religion and Law and a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Europe. "This could provoke the largest inter-Christian conflict of the past years."

Source.
Hat tip ROCOR UNITED

The pro-infanticide (abortion) feminists are having a fit, and that is good

Granted, the evidence is anecdotal. However if we may draw any conclusions at all from a spate of recent op-ed pieces by left wing feminists, then things are looking up for the unborn. There have been a whole slew of editorials and columns attacking (sometimes in near hysterical terms) the passage of the so called Stupak amendment to the omnibus health care reform bill that (barely) cleared the House of Representatives last Saturday. Most of these see the ammendment as one of the greatest threats in years to the abortion rights movement.

I think they are right.

The amendment prohibits the use of government funds either directly or indirectly for abortion coverage. It effectively would exclude insurance plans that cover abortion from the government run "exchange" that is envisioned. This is since all those plans would be eligible to receive subsidy money from lower income or cash strapped middle class families as part of the mandate for universal health insurance. In theory the government wants the vast majority of insurance to be provided through the private sector.

An effort was made by pro-abortion legislators to replace the amendment with one that would have admitted insurance plans that cover abortion into the exchange provided they segregate any funds from government subsidies This was justly dismissed as an accounting gimmick that would still have left abortion providing insurer's holding government money. Effectively creating what the New York Times, in a rare moment of editorial honesty, labeled "a distinction without a difference."

There is much that I find disturbing in the House bill that recently passed. But it does have some redeeming elements to it. This is clearly one of them. I think the bill is profoundly flawed in its mechanics and in urgent need of revision. But the inclusion of this amendment is enough to make me pause and draw a very deep breath before condemning the bill out of hand. If (a very big word) some form of major health reform were to pass Congress this year, and if this amendment or something functionally identical were included, it would severely limit the ability to employ insurance to cover the cost of killing one's child.

On a purely secondary but not unimportant level it would have the effect of putting abortion under the censure of public law. By so very firmly prohibiting federal funds (there are a handful of narrowly defined exceptions) from being used to cover abortions or subsidize abortion covering insurance Congress would be making a clear statement that however legal it might be, the practice is repugnant to the sensibilities of most Americans. This is in keeping with recent polls that show for the first time since Roe v Wade a majority of Americans self identify as "pro-life."

For years the pro-life movement has been obsessed with an all or nothing strategy that I think has been self defeating. This is not a battle that will be won in an afternoon. It is a war that will be won over many years with lots of small battles playing out over that time. We will win some and we will loose some. Indeed we already have.

But after years of reversals I sense a shift in the tide of fortune. Public opinion is moving in the right direction. It is important to remember though that even among those who now self identify as pro-life you will get a diversity of opinion. Many would still tolerate the practice in the first trimester. Point in fact there is vast disagreement within the pro-life movement about where to draw the line.

The Roman Catholic Church's position is that there is no line. We Orthodox are very close to that position although the Church does not presume to judge in cases where the mother's life is in danger. Beyond that most pro-life seem to be comfortable with exceptions for rape and incest. For the record I am not. I draw the line at the life of the mother.

But even if we set the bar fairly low by the pro-life standard it is possible by means of an "inch at a time" strategy to envision a slow process by which abortion once again falls under the harsh judgment of a civilized society and becomes progressively more restricted.

If you will pardon the ubiquitous sports analogy, in baseball this is called winning by small ball. What we have been doing for the last thirty years is going for the dramatic long ball, or home run. As repulsive as it is, we must accept the fact that the Supreme Court is most unlikely to admit they made a mistake in Roe and overturn three decades of judicial precedent. With this view in mind we should be focusing on nibbling at the edges of this odious ruling until we reduce it to near meaninglessness. We need to start fighting the small battles and taking imperfect compromises where we can get them if they move a runner to the next base.

This is ultimately how the war for the lives of the unborn will be won.

"I am usually glad to get some of what I want today as opposed to nothing, especially when I know I can still fight for the rest later on."

-Ronald Reagan

The legacy of bad law

It was arguably the worst Supreme Court decision since Roe v Wade that legalized theft by eminent domain.

From the edge of the Thames River in New London, Conn., Michael Cristofaro surveyed the empty acres where his parents’ neighborhood had stood, before it became the crux of an epic battle over eminent domain.

“Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.”

That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company, announced it would leave the city just eight years after its arrival led to a debate about urban redevelopment that rumbled through the United States Supreme Court, and reset the boundaries for governments to seize private land for commercial use.

Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to a campus it owns in Groton, Conn., as a cost-cutting measure. It would leave behind the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.

The announcement stirred up resentment and bitterness among some local residents. They see Pfizer as a corporate carpetbagger that took public money, in the form of big tax breaks, and now wants to run.

“I’m not surprised that they’re gone,” said Susette Kelo, who moved to Groton from New London after the city took her home near Pfizer’s property. “They didn’t get what they wanted: their development, their big plan.”

Read the rest here.

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev delivers a sobering speech to his country

MOSCOW -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on his country Thursday to shed its "humiliating" dependence on exports of oil and other raw materials and to adopt a more pragmatic foreign policy aimed at attracting investment and promoting growth.

In an unusually blunt appraisal of the state of his nation, Medvedev also warned that Russia has been hit harder than most by the global economic crisis and needs to undertake sweeping reforms to build a modern, high-tech economy if it is to remain a world power.

"Our relations with other countries should be focused on the task of modernizing Russia. We mustn't, as they say, puff out our chests," he said during a 100-minute televised address. "We are interested in the flow of capital, new technologies and modern ideas."

Medvedev avoided directly criticizing his patron and predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who sat without smiling in the audience of lawmakers and other officials at the Kremlin. But the speech represented a subtle rebuke of Putin's legacy. In his most stinging remarks, Medvedev said the country had been "kept afloat" by Soviet-era achievements, without mentioning Putin's eight years as president.

Read the rest here.

A highflying patriarch

The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church has flown fighter jets and passenger airliners and has tried to convince colleagues of the joys of parachute jumps, according to a senior cleric in Moscow.

Patriarch Kirill, enthroned as leader of the world’s 160 million Russian Orthodox believers in February, spends much of his time following rituals little changed since the Middle Ages. But he has other ways to get close to the heavens.

“He has taken the control stick of passenger planes, to which I am a witness, and of fighter jets,” said Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev, quoted by Interfax news agency.

“Once he even tried to convince me to make a parachute jump,” said Alfeyev, a senior cleric who oversees the church’s relations with other Christian denominations. “I said I was ready so as long as I knew the date in advance so I could leave my papers in order.” He said the 62-year-old patriarch had not yet set a date.

Source

The Greek Orthodox Church is urging support for the Catholic Church

The Greek Orthodox Church is urging Christians across Europe to unite in an appeal against a ban on crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled last week that the presence of crucifixes violated a child's right to freedom of religion.

Greece's Orthodox Church fears the Italian case will set a precedent.

It has called an emergency Holy Synod meeting for next week to devise an action plan.

Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been at odds with Roman Catholicism for 1,000 years, the judicial threat to Christian symbols has acted as a unifying force.

The European Court of Human Rights found that the compulsory display of crucifixes violated parents' rights to educate their children as they saw fit and restricted the right of children to believe or not to believe.

'Worthy symbols'

The head of the Greek Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, shares Catholic complaints that the court is ignoring the role of Christianity in forming Europe's identity.

It is not only minorities that have rights but majorities as well, said the archbishop.

One of his subordinates, Bishop Nicholas from central Greece, lamented that at this rate youngsters will not have any worthy symbols at all to inspire and protect them.

Football and pop idols are very poor substitutes, he said.

The Greek Church has ostensibly intervened in this case in response to an appeal by a Greek mother whose son is studying in Italy.

But without doubt it is concerned that its omnipotence in Greece is under threat.

A human rights group called Helsinki Monitor is seeking to use the Italian case as a precedent.

It has demanded that Greek courts remove icons of Jesus Christ from above the judge's bench and that the gospel no longer be used for swearing oaths in the witness box.

Helsinki Monitor is urging trade unions to challenge the presence of religious symbols in Greek schools.

The socialist government here is also considering imposing new taxes on the Church's vast fortune, but at the same time is urging it to do more to help immigrants and poor Greeks.

Source

The latest in retro fashion from the 90's... the 1890's

Living in California it's been a while since I have been in the city (for those not from the east coast "the city" unless otherwise specified refers to New York). So I will admit that I have not kept up on the fashion trends too much. For most of the last couple of decades my observation has been, at least among men, a steady downward trend to the point where it is no longer unusual to see males in shopping malls wearing their pajamas or lounge-wear. That is certainly the case here on the left coast where the standards of dress have become so casual that I am frequently embarrassed for my gender. So one may imagine my surprise when I stumbled on this piece in the New York Times.

Not long ago, big brass-buttoned military coats looked a bit extreme. So did high-button, high-lapel vests and slim tweed trousers. And so did guys who tucked said trousers into high, old-fashioned hunting boots. Now these clothes (along with those ever-present beards and mustaches) look like downtown defaults compared with fall runway looks like cardinal-red tailcoats at Ralph Lauren, capes and bowlers at Alexander McQueen and knee breeches at Robert Geller.

As with home design, where curio cases, taxidermy and other stylish clutter of the Victorian era have been taken up by young hipsters, many of today’s popular men’s styles have their roots in the late 19th century. There are the three-piece suits once favored by mustachioed Gilded Age bankers; the military greatcoats and boots of Union officers; and the henley undershirts, suspenders, plaid flannel shirts and stout drill trousers worn by plain, honest farmers.

Just ask Taavo Somer, whose restaurant Freemans, with its mounted animal heads and antique oil landscapes, has been one of the trend’s most active petri dishes (and who lives the fantasy sufficiently to enjoy shooting skeet on weekends upstate). Even his eyebrows went up recently when he saw a young man dressed in a bowler, cape, breeches and knee socks on the Lower East Side.

Read the rest here.

It was enough to warm my reactionary heart. That was until I saw the money they are charging for some of this which was nearly enough to induce cardiac arrest. Still, if there is indeed some sort of trend toward more formal dress among men taking hold, then I am all for it (even if it is carrying retro to new lengths). ANYTHING to restore some sense of self respect among the male of the species in our deportment and appearance. But please, if your going to go 1890's, get the rules right. A bowler is a casual form of head gear. The cape (full length) on the other hand is strictly formal. Hollywood movies notwithstanding the two do not go together.

Cell Phones & Cancer

For as long as there have been cell phones my sister has refused to use them, swearing that they cause cancer. And of course we all laughed. Well we aren't laughing anymore. (In fairness I would note that my sister is a technological Luddite who still only uses a rotary phone in her apartment and whose usual references to computers can't be quoted on a Christian blog.)

I am not too worried since I don't use my phone often and I rarely carry it on my person. Still it is a bit disconcerting to keep hearing about the growing body of circumstantial evidence connecting cell phone use to various cancers, especially brain tumors.

CNN has the story on the subject which can be read here.

What does a Tsunami look like?

The United States monetary base 1975 - present (click to enlarge).


The United States monetary base 1998 - present.

Source.

Prayer Request...

Fellow Orthodox blogger and an occasional commenter on these pages "RightWingProf" is gravely ill. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

Well it wasn't all bad news

When you have the lefties and pro-infanticide feminists as upset as they clearly are then something must have gone right. For evidence I refer the reader to this piece by Jodi Jacobson who appears to be having a stroke over the Stupak amendment, which with a very few exceptions bars any Federal funding directly or indirectly for abortion services in the health care reform bill passed last night. Looking for someone to blame she of course latches onto a convenient target... the Catholic bishops.

Tonight, with the aide of some 60 Democrats, women's rights were effectively negated by the US Congress as the House passed the Stupak amendment to HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care Act of 2009.

More in-depth analysis of how we got here is forthcoming. But one thing is clear: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) apparently is running the US government, aided by a cadre of "faith-based advocacy groups," the House Democratic leadership, the White House and members of the Senate.

If you didn't know that before, be clear about it. Know it now.And this is particularly true when it comes to women's rights. Any time there is an "important" vote that implicates women's rights and onto which a politician has hitched their political star--in this case President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi among them--you can bet that the Bishops will be wielding huge influence to make sure no "gains" can be made unless women are screwed. You will hear a lot tomorrow and in the days ahead as to how "this important bill" could not be "held hostage" to any one issue, "it's not perfect," and how "compromises needed to be made," in order to "get things done."

Read the rest here.

To the extent that the Catholic bishops were indeed involved in this victory I can only say... well done!

Read...

This excellent post by the Anglican Curmudgeon. Don't delay. GO NOW!

Hat tip: Bill (aka The Godfather)

Leave comments there please.

Breaking News: The House Vote on Health Care

The House of Representatives has approved an amendment that prohibits Federal funding for abortion with a few narrow exceptions. They are now voting on the Republican alternative bill which is purely a formality. The real nail biter will be when the vote is called for the main bill. It is not certain that enough Democrats are prepared to back it although some pro-life (there are a few) Democrats have indicated they would if abortion funding is excluded. It remains to be seen if enough moderate and pro-life Democrats will now vote for it.

Update: The GOP alternative bill has been voted down. No surprise.

Update: It looks like the GOP is trying to pull a rabbit out of their parliamentary hat. An amendment dealing with tort reform has been presented that was not expected. The Democrats sound ticked since they claim to have been given no notice. I think this is little more than a delaying tactic which will slow things up by perhaps 20 minutes in the end.

Update: The surprise GOP amendment has been voted down. The House is now voting on the health care bill amended to include severe restrictions on abortion funding.

Update: The House bill appears to have passed. It has the required 218 votes although a couple of members have not yet cast their votes. Very surprising is that a (one) Republican actually voted for the bill. If the bill passes with the bare minimum that could make life uncomfortable for the lone Republican supporter.

Final Update: The bill has passed 220-215 with one Republican voting for it and 39 Democrats voting no. The bill now goes to the Senate which is expected to move on their own bill in the near future. It seems exceedingly unlikely that the House bill with its robust public option will survive intact in a much more centrist body like the Senate. Assuming the Senate is able to pass a health care bill the two bills would then go to a conference committee where differences would be hammered out and a uniform bill then sent back to each house for an up or down vote.

The President's signature is not in doubt if a uniform bill is actually passed.

The Normandie

A beautiful and bittersweet tribute to arguably the greatest ocean liner ever built.

US Catholic, Orthodox prelates criticize Cardinal Kasper’s milestone Ravenna document

Abandoning the diplomatic language typical of ecumenical pronouncements, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, chaired by Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh, has issued a candid critique of the 2007 “Ravenna document,” a modest milestone in Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical relations.

The Ravenna document, while not purporting to be the Church’s official teaching, was issued by the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, chaired by Cardinal Walter Kasper and Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamon. A month after the document was issued, Cardinal Kasper told other cardinals that “for the first time the Orthodox representatives recognized a universal level of the Church and admitted that at this level there also exists a Protos, a Primate, who can only be the Bishop of Rome according to the taxis [order] of the ancient Church. All the participants are aware that this is only a first step and that the journey toward full ecclesial communion will be long and difficult; yet, with this document we have set a base for future dialogue.”

After praising aspects of the Ravenna document, the North American Catholic and Orthodox participants in ecumenical dialogue issued their candid critique:

Read the rest here.

Quote of the day...

Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.

Of course, the U.S. government is not going to print money and distribute it willy-nilly

-Ben Bernanke from a speech in 2002

Click to enlarge.
Source

California to withhold a bigger chunk of paychecks

Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.

Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.

Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.

Read the rest here

Hat tip T-19

A reflection on death and the modern American funeral

...When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s body was borne on a mule-drawn sharecropper’s cart through the thronged streets of Atlanta, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy wisely and symbolically wore scuffed marching boots under his pulpit robe. “A good funeral,” says Thomas Lynch, a poet and undertaker in Milford, Mich., “is one that gets the dead where they need to go and the living where they need to be.”

Today, however, our death rituals have become downsized, inwardly directed, static and, as a result, spiritually and culturally impoverished. We tend now to recognize our dead only for their partial passions and whims. They were Mets fans, good for laughs at the office, pleasant companions on the links. At upbeat, open-mike “celebrations of life,” former coaches, neighbors and relatives amuse us with stories and naïvely declare that the dead, who are usually nowhere to be seen and have nowhere to go, will nevertheless live always in our memories. Funerals, which once made confident public pilgrimage through town to the graveyard, now tread lightly across the tiny tableau of our psyches.

Even those mourners who, by will or habit, wish to take their dead to the place of departure often find their way blocked. Some cemeteries, fearing liability lawsuits from falls and the like, no longer allow funeral processions to go the distance to the open grave but encourage the mourners to leave the coffin in a faux sanctuary at the entrance. And many American crematories, unlike their European counterparts, are not designed to allow mourners to accompany the body all the way to the fire. Instead the dead must be dropped off, like a night deposit at the bank.

We hardly complain, though. For the first time in history, the actual presence of the dead at their own funerals has become optional, even undesirable, lest the body break the illusion of a cloudless celebration, spoil the meditative mood and reveal the truths about grief, life and death that our thinned-out ceremonies cannot bear.

Read the rest here.