Indra Nooyi and PepsiCo charging forward

The Economist has an interesting article on Indra Nooyi and the shifting direction of PepsiCo, a leading manufacturer of snack foods. On March 22 Ms. Nooyi announced that Pepsi was establishing targets of healthiness amongst it's myriad of snack products.

By 2015 the firm aims to reduce the salt in some of its biggest brands by 25%; by 2020, it hopes to reduce the amount of added sugar in its drinks by 25% and the amount of saturated fat in certain snacks by 15%. Pepsi also recently announced that it would be removing all its sugary drinks from schools around the world by 2012.

One could argue that this is in response to First Lady Michelle Obama's speech to the Grocery Manufactures Association, but as The Economist notes:

Under Ms Nooyi, who became boss in 2006, it has stepped up its diversification into products it calls “better for you” and “good for you”, including fruit juices, nuts and porridge (oatmeal, to Americans). Ms Nooyi does not see this as a case of trading profits for virtue. Instead, she insists both are possible—an idea expressed in the firm’s syrupy motto: “Performance with purpose.”

Ms. Nooyi isn't the first woman to strong arm corporate culture at Pepsi Co to change the direction of the company... I'm looking at you Joan Crawford (warning below video is NSFW)

Foodstamps and foodies

A friend on facebook just updated their status to say:

justg [sic] watched my tax dollars pay for a month's food stamps worth of overpriced, organic junk food at EarthFare, ugh... the system is broken!

It's funny because only a couple of days ago did I find a blog discussion on that very notion... folks using food stamps to purchase foodie foods. From The Daily Dish:

Jennifer Bleyer mocks young people using food stamps to purchase foodie products. Elizabeth Nolan Brown shrugs:

People are always railing, of course, about how people on food stamps don’t buy enough healthy food. But heaven forbid the food they buy is too healthy, or healthy and also outside the mainstream. It’s absurd. Fresh produce is a luxury? Soy protein (which costs about the same as meat) the height of libertine-ism? Not to mention that things such as Chinese gourd and coconut milk are the very kind of corner-store staples in ethnic neighborhoods that often sell these sorts of foods cheaper than mainstream varieties...

Dreher comes around:

I confess I did flinch at the idea of these people spending their taxpayer-provided food dollars at Whole Paycheck. And that made me realize that I have this unrecognized prejudice that the poor -- meaning those who qualify for food stamps -- must be condemned to eat cheap, bad food as the price of receiving state charity. That's not right, is it? I mean, why wouldn't I care if Joe Bob bought a box of Velveeta with his food stamps, but spending that money on a wedge of triple creme Brie rankles?

For me it's a no-brainer, while price doesn't exactly equate with healthfulness of foods, it can be an indicator as does location, in the case of my friend Earthfare. In the long run, if folks are spending their subsidies at places such as Earthfare it means two things -- their purchasing power decreases which automatically limits portion sizes, and the quality of the food items - and yes healthfulness - increases. In the long run that means a possible lower likelihood of obesity and a possible downward shift in medical costs.

Food for thought?

The LHC is off and running!

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) started up yesterday in Switzerland and has officially surpassed the Tevatron at Fermi Labs in Chicago. The system is not yet up to full speed where scientist expect all the weird/fun shit to happen. That'll happen sometime next year. In the meantime you can place your bets! As The Economist notes:

 

Paddy Power, an online bookmaker, is offering odds of 11 to 10 that dark matter will be found before black holes and 8 to 1 that black holes will be first. Dark energy, a mysterious force thought to drive the expansion of the universe, trails at 12 to 1. And for those who fancy a real outside bet, the firm is also offering 100 to 1 that the machine will discover God.

My money is on dragons.

It's only the tip of the iceberg

The State Newspaper ran a very interesting Op-Ed piece today by Bettis Rainsford:

Tax revenues are down all across the state, but many counties and school districts - particularly those in our rural areas -have been particularly hard hit because of the loss of manufacturing plants and the ad valorum tax revenue these plants produced. Worse, the migration of new manufacturing investments to other countries means that many counties and school districts will not be able to attract the kind of capital investment they need in to generate sufficient tax revenue to provide minimally adequate services for their citizens.

There is one type of capital investment, however, that is going to be made and that should be used to assist all counties across our state: electrical generating facilities. The growing demand for electrical power throughout the United States will mean that electric utility companies will be building massive new generating facilities in the years to come.

Most of these new facilities are expected to be extremely large, requiring the investment of billions of dollars, and they will be located in only a few counties. Under current law, they pay extremely large property taxes to the counties in which they are located, resulting in huge financial windfalls for those counties. In the case of one proposed $10 billion investment, the windfall could amount to many tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue.

Because these plants will create relatively few jobs and require a negligible amount of local services, the host counties will experience very little increase in the cost of their local governments. Thus, the huge increase in revenue will almost all fall to the bottom line, providing enormous resources for these fortunate counties.

These electrical generating plants are a part of a regulated industry; electrical consumers have no choice from whom they purchase their electrical power. For stockholder-owned utility companies, rates are set by the S.C. Public Service Commission based upon the total costs of the utility, including taxes. Thus, all of the utility's electrical consumers are, in effect, being forced to pay the taxes that will go entirely to the county in which the generating plant happens to be located.

To understand the magnitude of this issue, one needs to recognize that $25 billion or more will be spent on new generating facilities in South Carolina over the next 15 years. Already SCANA and Santee Cooper are in the beginning stages of a $10 billion investment. Duke Power has an $11 billion project in the works. Other utilities may soon follow. If the taxes from these investments were shared on a per capita basis with all of the counties and school districts rather than being kept by just the few counties where the plants will be located, the vast majority of our counties and school districts would recognize significant increases in revenue.

For example, using very conservative assumptions, Allendale schools and local governments might receive more than $700,000; Marlboro might receive as much as $2 million annually; and Darlington, $4.5 million. Larger counties would benefit too: Richland, Charleston and Greenville would each receive more than $20 million annually.

I believe that our state Legislature should move to correct the inequity that exists in current law. There is no justification for allowing a few counties and school districts to realize such huge windfalls at the expense of electrical consumers from all of the other counties, particularly when so many are struggling just to make ends meet. Bills already have been filed in the Senate and the House to amend current law to provide that the huge tax revenue to be paid on new electrical generating facilities be shared equitably among all of the local governments and school districts. I urge all South Carolinians to study this matter and to ask their representatives in the General Assembly to support this legislation.

Mr. Rainsford, a co-founder of the textile giant Delta Woodside Industries, is president of the Rainsford Development Corp. in Edgefield.

I would argue though, why limit yourself to only new power generating facilities - why  not offer a 5 year window and then transition all power generating facilities into this scheme.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fundamental tax reform that needs to go on in this state, but more on those reforms as time goes by.

Colour me shocked.... SHOCKED!

Knock me over with a feather, we learned today Ricky Martin is... gay.

Here's another one you saw coming. (Or would have seen coming if you gave the slightest shit.)

That's right-- continuing the long tradition of officially coming out of the closet long after anyone cares or even really remembers who you are, late 90's Latin heartthrob Ricky Martin has announced his gaiety on his website, writing: " I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am. RM"

Babaluuuuuuuuuuuu!

Oh. Wait. Wrong Ricky. Oh well! Congratulations anyway, Mr. Martin!

What no People article, no gabies?

Healthcare, Abortion, individual liberties, and going forward

Protesting against HCR and BHO. Photo: Astrid Riecken/Getty Images

It's been pretty quiet around these parts as I've been thinking about the recent Health care reform law that was signed by President Obama. After more than a year of debates that from the beginning were wildly uncivil and filled with smoke and mirrors the first step of reform has been completed - but the job is far from done.

In the end beyond death panels the two biggest concerns were the supposed loss of liberty with the notion that this is a healthcare take over (which persists in the postmortem of the bill passing) and that this law now somehow expands federal funding of abortion.

The first concern, which is the nebulous argument of the "loss of liberty" is even more nuanced than that about abortion. Many anti-reformist say that this is a Government Takeover of Healthcare, and say that the federal government can't mandate folks buy a private product.

This actually caused a flame war on the facebooks as I was arguing in favor of the mandate on a friend's mother's wall. (My friend's mother supports reform as well).

Current Jurisprudence actually lends to the credibility of the Federal Government not only mandating the purchase of insurance through the commerce clause but taxing individuals for not purchasing it vis - a -vis Congress' constitutional authority to levy a tax, fines, fees, what have you and this particular enumerated power is very broad. I'm not going to spell out all the specifics but through the magic of the internet provide you a link to a .pdf file from Congressional Research Service on the constitutionality of mandates. Enjoy. It's interesting to note that most folks hemming and hawing about loss of personal liberties in the healthcare debates were very quiet and supportive, and still are, of the Patriot act and all the personal liberties it abridged.

And to date I've yet to find anyone who can explain to me how a government telling you to purchase a private product is a takeover of that industry. Anyone care to explain that one?

Now for... abortion. I'm pro life -- any many ways probably more pro-life than my coreligionists, but that can be explained later. The Senate language for community health centers did not provide language which excludes abortion. In every other instance in the senate bill of funding for specific healthcare programs exclusionary language was used. Many on the far right of the pro - life movement pounced on this one line exclusion and the snow ball effect ensued.

In the end this caused a nasty divide pitting the USCCB against a bunch of Nuns and the CHA.

Who's right.

Well many would argue that it's the Bishops, not just because they're bishops, but because they're right. For many Catholics it's a simple matter of obedience, the Bishops' lawyers (who increasingly come from far right blindly ideological organizations) wouldn't advise the Bishops wrongly, and the Bishops wouldn't promulgate their decision based on false or misconstrued information so they must be right... right.

On the other hand you have the nuns who have been driving as far left as they can since the SVC and who are more likely to be seen escorting women to abortion clinics than praying for them or offering them the assistance they would need in prenatal care, while a foil to the Bishops and a P.R. boon for left leaning catholics, substantively because of such escort services don't have much credibility in this argument despite their best intentions and the great works they do helping the poor. And the Catholic Health Association ... well they're a hospital, and like other industries will suffer and benefit under reform, in this case hospitals and physicians will benefit more with federal subsidies so their support of the reform law has the appearance of impropriety.

Let's get one thing straight. All three groups, the Bishops, the Nuns, the hospitals -- wanted to see healthcare reform. All three don't want to see federal funding of abortion, and yet they devolved into a pissing match over the absence of one sentence regarding community healthcare, and then the fall out and recriminations over Bart Stupack getting an executive order reinforcing the language in the senate bill and reaffirming the Hyde amendment.

For my own part, while the E.O. was nice, the critics were right -- it was a piece of fluff. BUT it wasn't fluff because of the Obama is the most pro abortion meme - but because it's unnecessary, Hyde stands.

Simply put there was no abrogation of Hyde in the text of the bill. The mere absence of Hyde like language from the community health centers portion of the bill does not change the fact that funding for community health centers, while now being increased, still goes through HHS contra what Kathleen Parker argues today in the Post. From Mother Jones.

pro-life groups say the funding for the community health centers funding will be exempt from the Hyde Amendment because it's not being spent through the normal appropriations process. It’s true that these funds will reach the centers through a different legislative route, but it doesn’t matter. As Jost has explained in a detailed analysis (PDF), all of the community health clinic money is going to end up in the same "pot" at the Department of Health and Human Services. And, he writes, since all HHS funding “is subject to the Hyde Amendment, these funds cannot be used to pay for abortions."

Kathleen is right about one thing -- they Hyde Amendment is reupped annually on appropriations bills for HHS. But the Amendment applies to all funds at HHS, not just those appropriated at that one time in that one act, otherwise abortion access would already be possible with the subsequent bills that provide extend additional funding to HHS and it's programs.

The bill has passed, the only thing to do now is work on strengthening legislation to protect life and expand coverage while battling costs. Daivd Frum who has received more than his share of flak from the right of his party recognizes this and has come up with some common sense conservative steps going forward that will further reform the system. More and more conservatives are stepping up to bat against the Beck/Limbaugh Tea Party movement, and offering constructive critiques and ways forward. Personally I yearn for further enactments of the Wyden-Bennett proposals for reform, and yearn absolutely yearn for the day when the following four things happen: the employer based health care system is abolished, health insurance companies can sell plans across lines, health insurance companies exemption from anti-trust laws are ended, and when we end the abortion debate once and for all and some smart insurance types come up with an eye-med like company to cover all manner of 'reproductive health,' from birth control and IVF to elective abortions and gender reassignment surgeries.

QOTD: specious

"To think that somehow the rules of evidence can lead you to the right answer is just not right. There should not have been a trial." 

 

So said Jordan W. Lorence, a lawyer with Alliance Defense Fund on the Proposition 8 trial. Our entire legal system is built upon the trying of fact, which is why this statement is so absurd.

 

 

 

Beyond Left and Right: Gays against marriage equality

I suppose the one thing both these folks have in common is that they're radical. From Just Out:

Controversial Portland author Jack Donovan(Jack Malebranche) is sounding the alarm as to why marriage equality hurts society, but military equality helps everyone.

Donovan, whose book Androphilia: A Manifesto has become a controversial cult classic for man-loving men in the Northwest and nationwide, recently partnered with the unconventionally conservative blogAlternative Right . His newest essay, “The Homosexual Question: Why Same-Sex Marriage is Wrong, but Repealing DADT is Right,” is just as thought-provoking, challenging, shocking, polarizing, and important as Androphilia and its follow-up Blood Brotherhood and Other Rites of Male Alliance.

And on the other end of the spectrum you have this from tidbit picked up by Towleroad:

An interview with Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld by filmmaker Bruce LaBruce in the current issue of VICE magazine touches briefly on the subject of same-sex marriage. Lagerfeld doesn't believe in it.

LABRUCE: You are against the idea of gay marriage. I totally agree with you on that.
LAGERFELD: Yes, I’m against it for a very simple reason: In the 60s they all said we had the right to the difference. And now, suddenly, they want a bourgeois life.

LABRUCE: It’s normalizing.
LAGERFELD: For me it’s difficult to imagine—one of the papas at work and the other at home with the baby. How would that be for the baby? I don’t know. I see more lesbians married with babies than I see boys married with babies. And I also believe more in the relationship between mother and child than in that between father and child.

LABRUCE: I take it you don’t want children.
LAGERFELD: If I were interested in children, I would be a godfather—or a godmother. I don’t like the idea of taking people out of their lives and their contexts. If there were a child I wanted to adopt, I would try to find the family of the child and give them the money for an education in his life and his context.

Radical Masculinists and Fairies unite! These must be the folks working for Maggie Gallagher.

Columbia wants Google Fiber (so does the rest of SC)

I read with excitement about how folks in Columbia (and Greenville by the way, and I'm sure some other fellow SC communities) are getting über-excited about Google Fiber.* How can we not? In this new century, much like our Automakers in the last, Google represents American creativity, enginuity and leadership. Besides, the way things are our internet service providers are terrible monopolies who really could give a hoot about their customers -- have you called Time Warner and tried to get a cable guy to come out? What about AT&T and their technicians?

My excitement didn't last long though. It gave way to disapointment. I thought: as good as Google is we South Carolinians shouldn't have to sell ourselves in quirky marketing gigs for higher speed internet access, or even access at all. Because it was only last year that our State's leaders (in what was the saddest, most undervalued giveaway in the state's history - worse than when we thought we could plug state budget holes by selling large portions of state property) sold 90% of ETV's broadcast bandwidth to two companies, Clearwire and BridgeMaxx for the low low price of $143 million over 20 years. (Yeah I mentioned this yesterday briefly)

That's $7.15 million a year, and when our state has a budget of $5 billion that's 0.143% of our annual budget, if you view the state's budget like others, then that money accounts for 0.034% of our state balance sheet. I call that a give away, don't you?

Wow, had they thought about it reasonably... had they stood up to the state's communications monopolies - here's looking at you Ma Bell and Time Warner - we wouldn't have to be so excited about convincing Google to come here to set up a living lab for their high speed internet. If a bit more sunlight had been thrown on to the process of putting out the bid let alone awarding the contracts, who knows perhaps Google would gladly have approached us. Instead we sold a public trust for less than pennies on the dollar, only to see those two companies do what.... >>crickets<<

*It's funny that Columbia has a Facebook Group dedicated to Google Fiber, granted they're the number one social media site... but Google does have it's own social media sites with Buzz and Orkut.

The FCC must have been watching the happenings in SC

According the Huffington Post, the FCC is unveiling sweeping changes to America's National Broadband Plan. This was a key component of the Obama Administration's Recovery Act. It has the potential to effect more than 100 million households in the country and will increase the connectivity/download speeds to more than 100 megabits per second... that's really really fast.

In their efforts to modernize the plan though it looks like they are mimicking the efforts of South Carolina's legislature.

Over the past three years in South Carolina the legislature has looked for a way to sell off the excess bandwidth of the ETV system. One of the biggest concerns the republican dominated legislature faced was a belief that they must sell the bandwidth into the private market because otherwise it would be government intervention... you know the drill. The plan would have been quietly put through had it not been for the efforts of the Progressive Network and their executive director Brett Bursey. Their efforts though noble, were fruitless and the legislature sold off the bandwidth in two twenty year contracts valuing $143 million.

The two companies who were awarded the contract in October of 2009, Clearwire and BridgeMaxx, have no information about their plans for South Carolina's Broadband Spectrum available on their websites. Other than press releases dated from mid 2009 when the committee recommended the state make the deal with the two companies there's not been a peep.

Hopefully these two companies, who are poised to also reap the benefits of the proposed FCC changes, will be a bit more visible than they have been in the Palmetto State.

Filling out the Census

We got the 2010 Census form in the mail today. I decided to go ahead and fill it out and send it back in. I have an unusual affinity for filling out government documents and sending them in as quick as possible -- my taxes are always done by the first week of February.

I tingled in anticipation as I got to a certain question that listed my relationship to the owner of the house, my partner. We had planned to "gay bomb" the census. (I encourage all of my LGBT friends who live with their partners and consider themselves common law or officially married to do so)

And while our numbers won't be counted in the official tally of married couples, this will be the first census that recognizes us as a category of folks, according to CNN:

The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married, or more specifically, who use the terms husband and wife.

The number of same-sex couples who identify as married will be released separately from the national count on a state-by-state basis, according to Census Bureau reports.

Those couples will not be included in the official national count of married couples because the Census Bureau does not have time before April to change its editing processes -- which "recode" the answer of any person who says he or she is a spouse in a same-sex marriage to "unmarried partner."

So for now it's symbolic, but what a powerful symbol it'll be. I can't wait to see what the records in South Carolina indicate.

This week in Anglicanorum Coetibus, ctd. II

Our Lady of Atonement Anglican Use Parish in San Antonio Texas

The past few weeks have seen the largest affirmation of Anglicanorum Coetibus on these shores with 100 Anglican Church in America parishes voting to join the Catholic Church. This communion of churches does not have a presence in South Carolina - but, according to the website of the Diocese of the Eastern U.S. (DEUS for short interestingly enough), has three parishes in North Carolina: St Stephen's in Franklin, Our Lady of Good Counsel in Jacksonville, and St. Peter's in Waynesville.

As for disenchanted Anglicans in South Carolina, the episcopacy is gearing up for a turf war with the presiding bishop as more and more dioceses and churches move to distance themselves or separate out right from the national Episcopal Church. Oh the troubles of Charleston, meanwhile up river in Columbia - as Trinity Cathedral parish nears the end of the renovations - the upper diocese is awaiting the installation of their new Bishop, Andrew Waldo, who will hold the center much as the current, retiring ordinary Dorsey Henderson, if not tilt theologically liberal. His election was a surprise and came out of much tension and consternation.

Back to the Anglicans walking on the new bridge across the Tiber (bridge = the latin Pons, for which we get Pontifex, Pontiff, Pope, get it?). This week we got a glimpse body and soul of what the new Ordinariates will be like. First the Soul. Cardinal Levada gave a rousing speech on the new Ordinariates while in Canada - the goal of Christian Unity doesn't mean absorption into the monolith of the Roman Catholic Church. The Cardinal uses a distinctive, and well thought metaphor to describe the Union of these Anglicans with Rome. From Whispers in the Loggia:

Visible union with the Catholic Church does not mean absorption into a monolith, with the absorbed body being lost to the greater whole, the way a teaspoon of sugar would be lost if dissolved in a gallon of coffee. Rather, visible union with the Catholic Church can be compared to an orchestral ensemble. Some instruments can play all the notes, like a piano. There is no note that a piano has that a violin or a harp or a flute or a tuba does not have. But when all these instruments play the notes that the piano has, the notes are enriched and enhanced. The result is symphonic, full communion. One can perhaps say that the ecumenical movement wishes to move from cacophony to symphony, with all playing the same notes of doctrinal clarity, the same euphonic chords of sanctifying activity, observing the rhythm of Christian conduct in charity, and filling the world with the beautiful and inviting sound of the Word of God. While the other instruments may tune themselves according to the piano, when playing in concert there is no mistaking them for the piano. It is God’s will that those to whom the Word of God is addressed, the world, that is, should hear one pleasing melody made splendid by the contributions of many different instruments...

[The Catholic Church] believes that she is the mystical body of Christ and she is convinced that the Church of Christ subsists in her because she recognizes that, while she is like the piano that has all of the notes, that is, all of the elements of sanctification and truth, many of those notes are shared with other communities and those communities often have beautiful ways of sounding the notes that can lead to a heightened appreciation of truth and holiness, both within the Catholic Church and within her partners in the ecumenical endeavour....

To return to our earlier metaphor, people long for discordant tones and voices to be harmonized, united, and when an individual or, indeed, a community, is ready for unity with the Church of Christ that subsists in the Catholic Church, it would be a betrayal of Catholic ecumenical principles and goals to refuse to embrace them and to embrace them with all the distinctive gifts that enrich the Church, that help her approach the world symphonically, sounding together or united. Just as there is one Saviour, so there is one universal sacrament of Salvation, the Church. The Eastern Churches that are united to Rome are enjoined to preserve their distinct institutions, liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and way of Christian life. By so doing, the Second Vatican Council teaches they do not harm the Church’s unity, but rather, make it manifest.

The experience we are embarking on with Anglicanorum coetibus promises also to make the Church’s fundamental unity manifest by adding to her life distinctive expressions of Christ’s gifts of holiness and truth. Nevertheless, a strict comparison between the Anglicans and the Eastern Church and Catholic Churches would not be correct, I hasten to add. The Eastern Churches, like the Ukrainian Catholic Church so numerous in Canada, are in the fullest sense of the term “Churches” since they have valid apostolic succession and thus valid Eucharist. They are therefore called Churches “sui juris” because they have their own legal structures of governance, all while maintaining bonds of hierarchical communion with the Bishop of Rome. The term Church is applied differently to the Anglican Communion for reasons rehearsed over a century ago by Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae curae. So the legal framework for Anglican communities seeking full communion precisely as communities would be different from that of Eastern Churches. They remain a part of the Western Latin Church tradition. That is why the Holy Father has decided to erect personal ordinarities in order to provide pastoral care for such groups who wish to share their gifts corporately with their Catholic sisters and brothers and with whom they have shared a long history before the Reformation in the 16th century.

Running on the idea of the eastern churches, let's turn to the Australian Bishop who's been a kind of point man on the Roman side outside of the Roman Curia for all things Anglicanorum, Peter Elliott. From Damian Thompson:

Anglicanorum coetibus establishes a distinct community for Anglicans who choose to return to unity with the Successor of St Peter. But it is not accurate to call this an “Anglican Rite Ordinariate”. A better expression would be an “Anglican Use Personal Ordinariate”, that is, a structured community maintaining its own traditions, at the same time enjoying distinct liturgical privileges within the Roman Rite. To understand the proposed structure we may compare it with similar structures that already exist within the Catholic Church.

The Military Ordinariate

The proposed Anglican Use Ordinariate may be compared to the Military Ordinariate, set up in many countries, including Australia, the UK and the US. The Anglican Church of Australia has a similar structure. Anglicanorum coetibus refers to this structure in footnote 12.

A Military Ordinariate is kind of diocese covering a whole country but also “present” in places outside the country where military personnel serve, such as Afghanistan or East Timor. The bishop of the armed forces exercises ordinary jurisdiction over military chaplains and Catholic members of the armed forces – wherever they may be. Therefore his ministry relates directky to people and is more personal than territorial.

However, the structure proposed in Anglicanorum coetibis for an Anglican Use Personal Ordinariate is closer to a territorial diocese. There could be several Ordinariates in one country, which is not the case with the military structure. Therefore to better understand an Anglican Use Ordinariate we look into the venerable ancient Eastern Rites within the Catholic Church, properly called the Eastern Catholic Churches.

One Church: East and West

These autonomous Churches are in communion with Rome, but their members are not “Roman Catholics”, that is, not Catholics of the Roman Rite. I now need to open up something essential that many Anglicans do not understand – that the Catholic Church is not a monolithic structure. She is a communion of Churches, led by bishops who are in communion with the Bishop of Rome and with one another, members of one apostolic college. This unity through a communion of particular or local Churches is set out in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church promulgated by the Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium, 23.

Every diocese is a “particular Church”, governed by a successor of the apostles. This is why we talk of the Church of Rome, the Church of Melbourne, the Church of Washington etc. Through a complex history beginning in apostolic times, most of these particular Churches today are grouped together within the Roman Rite. Not only are they in communion with the Church of Rome, the See of Peter, but they also use the liturgy of Rome. The members of these particular Churches may be known as Roman Catholics, or Catholics of the Roman Rite, or Latin Catholics.

At the same time, many other particular churches are grouped within a series of ancient Eastern Rites, also in communion with Rome, but using liturgies appropriate to their origins: Syrian, Greek, Egyptian, Armenian etc. Their members are Ukrainian Catholics, Maronite Catholics, Coptic Catholics etc. They are not Roman Catholics. This is why it is wrong to lump us all together and call everyone in communion with Rome a “Roman Catholic”. I can describe myself in those terms, but my fellow Ukrainian Catholic should not – and will not – describe himself as an “RC”. So to sum it up, within the Catholic Church there is a wide range of Catholics and worshipping communities of Christian people.

Diocese and Eparchy

Looking more closely into these Eastern Catholic Churches, we first find typical territorial dioceses in the home country: Ukraine, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, India, Iraq etc. But then we find a second kind of diocese for those members of these Churches who have emigrated and are now scattered across a country such as Canada or Australia. This kind of diocese is usually, not always, called an eparchy.

In an eparchy an Eastern Rite bishop has jurisdiction over all the clergy and lay faithful of his Rite, within a country or within a region in a big country such as Canada. For example, the Ukrainian Catholic bishop with a fine cathedral in North Melbourne is the bishop of the Eparchy of St Peter and Paul, Australia. He has ordinary jurisdiction over all Ukrainian Catholics in Australia. His people are also known as “Greek Catholics” because they celebrate the liturgy of Constantinople, the Byzantine Rite.

The same kind of structure also applies to the Maronite diocese of St Maroun, the Chaldean Diocese of St Thomas and the Eparchy of St Michael the Archangel for Melchite Greek Catholics, all based in Sydney. The territory of these bishops coexists with the dioceses of the Roman Rite in Australia and the bishops are members of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

The Anglican Use Ordinariate

The Ordinary of an Anglican Use Personal Ordinariate will be like an eparch, having jurisdiction and pastoral care over a series of parishes, “juridically comparable to a diocese”. But he will “teach, sanctify and govern” within the Western tradition, the Roman Rite, and that is the interesting and new development in Anglicanorum coetibus. There is also another closer similarity between the proposed Anglican Use Personal Ordinariates and Eastern Catholic eparchies. That may be described as a distinctive “ethos” based on a liturgical tradition and a wide range of customs, history, spiritualities and culture, never forgetting the personal bonds between people and families. In your case this will be the Anglican patrimony. We will look more closely at this in due course.

In full communion with the Successor of St Peter, members of each Personal Ordinariate will be gathered in distinctive communities that preserve elements of Anglican worship, spirituality and culture that are compatible with Catholic faith and morals. Members of an Ordinariate will be able to worship according to own liturgical “use”, while still being Catholics of the Roman Rite. So in the Ordinariate you will be “Roman Catholics” or “Latin Catholics”, part of the largest group in the Universal Church. At the same time, like the Eastern Rite Catholics, you will be the bearers of a distinctive and respected tradition. Your Ordinaries, bishops or priests, will work alongside bishops of the Roman Rite dioceses and the bishops of Eastern Rite eparchies and dioceses, finding their place within the Episcopal Conference in each nation or region.

Still no one knows exactly how the liturgies of the Ordinariate will look, whether it's an expansion of the current Anglican Use or some new (old?) liturgical structure. Beyond praxis and structure of the Ordinariate is there support mechanisms in place in the state for these 100 parishes of soon to be new Catholics? While there's a support group for the Ordinariate in the UK, there's no formal support group group in the US, but that's probably because the ground work for the structures have been laid with the network of Anglican Use parishes in the states - though that's not to say they won't need all the prayers and material support they can get from local Roman Catholics.

Previous Posts:

This Week in Anglicanorum Coetibus

This Week in Anglicanorum Coetibus, ctd.

Spire Envy

photo from here.

It's a proud day for the city of Charleston, and the Catholic citizenry in particular.

The Holy City's sky line just became holier. One hundred years in the making, and it finally happened, the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston has been "completed" with the addition of the church's steeple. You can see a bloggy time line of the steeple construction and installation at the Cathedral Restoration website, along with additional pictures, and video of each step in the process.

The new steeple is gorgeous, Its design is a marriage of traditional concepts with modern design in order to keep the whole structure safe in case of hurricanes and earthquakes - two natural disasters that Charleston is intimately familiar with. The church now stands at 167 ft. tall.

According to The Post and Courier:

That's less than 20 feet below the tip of St. Michael's Church spire just down Broad Street and about 30 feet lower than St. Philip's Church -- the other tall landmark in the oldest part of downtown Charleston.

Uh oh, think I'm suffering from spire envy. Actually in this case, it's not so much about the height, no this isn't a euphemistic joke... it's more about the proportions of the copper structure to the brownstone belfry/tower. It's most apparent in the above photo with St. Michaels in the background. I'm hoping that it's just a camera trick, from looking at photos from the restoration site, it may be a camera trick... or it could be the shiny newness of the copper structure, perhaps it needs to oxidize to a nice green - which could take 20 years.

But, I'm happy for our see church, and the Holy city, and i'm sure that it'll grow on me beyond the appreciation for the individual structure itself.

The Post and Courier has more photos here.

Book Review: The Last Cato

The Last Cato - Matilde Asensi, $13.95

In high school Iloved reading the Divine Commedy. As I was clicking through BN.com I found the book The Last Cato. Because the quick caption on the back mentioned that this book used elements of the Divine Comedy, I had to pick it up and read it. Got to love impulse shopping.

I do admit though that prior to reading this novel, though not before buying it, for better or worse, I checked a couple of reviews. Most people started by saying "if you liked the Da Vinci code..." which was, to be honest, off putting.

The Da Vinci Code was a poorly written American novel that combined the worst aspects of left and right wingnuttery - antiChristian pomo-paganism and a baseless obsession with conspiracy theories. It only grazed plausibility with loose connections to any facts surrounding the historical characters or groups included in the work, which is why it deserves wholeheartedly the categorization as fiction. Like I said before though, it was poorly written fiction.

The Last Cato, which was published three years prior to the Da Vinci Code, does not embrace wingnuttery, is not antichristian, though it's not a hagiography of the modern churches. It does criticize utilizing liberal historical criticism, and veiled feminist criticism, and to a degree it contains a certain level of religious skepticism and anti-clericalism - which seems to fit the profile of the author: Woman born in continental Europe during the 60s - a stereotype true, but one that fits. But one thing is clear - the work is not a part of the bandwagon that says that religion is bad and that modern churches have ruined what was otherwise some good morals.

The book utilizes the historical and literary context of Dante's Comedy, to take our characters across the ancient Christian capitols of the Mediterranean world from catacomb to catacomb in search of the stolen relics of the lignum crucis. The narrative incorporates often neglected themes from Byzantine and early Medieval Church history to paint an historical picture, that while clearly fictionalized, has plausibility.

That's not to say that the book is without problems. The characters at times seemed shallow, and unknowable. There were also problems within the character dialog as well as narration with bland colloquialisms and out of place references that could have been used without. When this happened, and thankfully it happened rarely, it seemed as if there was a rupture in the story telling. It was as if the author was trying to deliberately input an ideological point that was otherwise obvious within the characters construction. The chief problem though was the translation. Originally written in Spanish, the English translation at times butchered what to that point was evenly flowing text - which could help explain some of the other narrative flaws because inherently something is always lost in translation

On the whole though, it was an enjoyable read, once I got into it, I really didn't want to put it down. It made more sense and held more appeal than the tripe that Dan Brown puts out. If done properly, it would also make a better movie than his work. One can only hope that future editions will be translated more accurately - and from looking at the titles the author has produced since the release of the Last Cato in 2001 - that more of her work will be translated.

A Pink Success!

The Pink Party was last night, and it was a total success. After weeks of meeting and planning, and this past week stressing out - it went off without a hitch. The facilities looked marvelous, the food and drinks were delicious. We honored Mayor Bob for the 20 years of support he's given the LGBT community and gave the floor to the candidates, and they were spot on. I don't have the exact breakdown between the two honorees, but we raised $13,000.00.

I met a lot of interesting campaign insiders from campaigns and candidates who were not being honored last night, not because we were against them - but because it was a party geared towards the mayoral race. I can say this, there is a ground swell of interest amongst candidates, local and statewide to have a pink party for them. (If any of you are reading this visit the Contact page of the Vote Pink! website and e-mail us) I can say, and I hope I'm not saying it prematurely, that there will be at least one more pink party this year -- so stay tuned.

But for now, with the party behind me, I can reorient my life and focus on other projects, including writing this blog more often -- I promise! That and reading. But before I do all that, I'm headed to Cheraw for a nice quiet break.

(Photos will be forthcoming!)

SVILUPPO: I may be too exhausted from the Pink Party to dish the mad details, but local favourite The Shop Tart wasn't. Check her post for deets and pics. And yes, I wore that pink bow tie and I'm fine with being a cliche.

Upcoming Birthday

It's all I can do to make it through this week, with the Pink Party fast approaching my brain has been focused like a laser, and it'll be sweet relief once that's over and done with. Then I get to look forward to a weekend that'll be just as packed with a birthday party, a trip to Cheraw, and a Sunday night Oscar party hosted by a yard sale with legs.

So I'll be looking forward to serene quiet of my 27th Birthday next Wednesday, March 10. It'll be serene because I'll be joining the YACs in a Vesper service. It'll be a great relief compared to these hectic days.

On The Atlantic ReDesign

So why not put my thoughts out there... everyone else has.

I'm an avid reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog The Daily Dish. Recently the entire Atlantic site underwent a drastic redesign that has riled up the readers and bloggers alike. Sullivan unloads here.

Ezra Klein, of the Washington Post, put in his two cents yesterday, and made some valid points:

The problem for the Atlantic is that they were a monthly institution entering a daily medium. Some magazines, like The American Prospect and The New Republic, solved that problem by accelerating their publication cycle to include daily Web articles and telling their staffs to blog. But some, like the Atlantic and the Washington Monthly, held back on changing the actual institution, and instead hired bloggers with existing audiences to come create daily content under the magazine's banner.

That worked out fine until the magazine wanted an online presence of its own only to realize that their acquisition strategy had left them an audience loyal to the individual "voices" rather than to the brand.

The Atlantic's redesign seems like a bet to re-center the Web site around the Atlantic as an institution rather than leaving it as a web hosting service for a couple of bloggers. What's causing the outcry is that in order to drive traffic to the new channels, they're integrating the blogs (save for the traffic-generating beast that is Sullivan's Daily Dish) into the channels. That way the readers of Ta-Nehisi's blog, to use one example, will become readers of the culture channel, which includes Ta-Nehisi's content.

If the Publisher's main concern is for the Magazine and its Web presence, then I can't help but hearken back to last year. Sullivan made an appeal to readers, that if they liked his blogging, they should support The Atlantic Monthly. I became a subscriber. My new found enthusiasm for the magazine has spread to friends of mine who are also now new subscribers to The Atlantic.

Not only this, but Sullivan has on several occasions linked internally to other pages/stories within the Atlantic. Beyond this any redesign could be minimized in an effort to drive traffic to their channels. To use a terrible metaphor, supported cross pollination seems like the better solution to laboratory hybridization.

Now if only someone could convince the fine folks over at Sandlapper to do a redesign and hire some bloggers, but finding bloggers in this state who, while they may be partisan, aren't beholden Party consultants and could drive traffic is damned impossible.

Seeing Red, feeling Blue? Vote Pink!

It's been a hectic past month, part of the reason I've not been blogging much. We're down to the wire and in just two days it'll be time to Party and help raise money for two worthy candidates to succeed Mayor Bob in Columbia.

If you're in town Thursday night, and you want to come out and celebrate Mayor Bob, and support "The Steves" then come to 701 Whaley.*

*A $50 donation is suggested at the door.