“Real Solutions” and other items

Since Pie and Coffee is on the list of integral blogs, maybe the connections between the “Items” should be made more explicit.

• Today in Worcester, a group of concerned citizens called Real Solutions announced their existence and asked the City to focus on compassionate, effective solutions to problems of poverty.

  The tag line: “Target poverty, not people.”

  The speakers included Baptist minister Walter Tilleman, one of the local clergy who signed a recent statement against the City’s panhandling campaign. (Monsignor Francis Scollen, my parish priest, also signed the statement.)

  Real Solutions called for the City to discontinue the anti-panhandling campaign, and focus these energies elsewhere.

  The group’s next meeting is Tuesday, September 20th at 7pm at Abby’s House Shelter at 52 High Street. The meeting will focus on the Mayor’s Social Service Siting Task Force.

  (Worcester Telegram & Gazette article)

  Speaking of American religious leaders taking an all-too-rare bold stand on controversial issues . . .
  
  

• . . . on August 29 the Leadership Conference of Women Religious declared opposition to the war in Iraq. The LCWR represents about 70,000 women religious (that is, Catholic nuns) in the US.
  

  We call on our government to develop a responsible plan for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq; to support the development of infrastructures for both human and environmental stability in Iraq; to respect religious and cultural diversity within Iraq; and to redirect needed resources to meet human needs at home and in other parts of the world.

  Speaking of the Catholic Church and hot-button issues . . .

• Yesterday, there was a small vigil at Worcester’s Holy Cross college sponsored by alumni and aimed at removing the college’s ROTC program. The vigil is held annually on September 14, the Feast of the Holy Cross.

  Speaking of Holy Cross . . .

• . . . Fr. Daniel Berrigan will be speaking at the Hogan Ballroom there Weds, Sept 28, 7:00 pm.

  Speaking of Catholic priests . . .

• . . . New York Times: Vatican to Check U.S. Seminaries on Gay Presence.

  Many years ago I was at a week-long Boy Scouts of America training program to be a summer camp Aquatics Director. One day a bureaucratic type addressed our class on the BSA’s homosexuality policy, which at that time required us to inform on camp staff who were gay. An old guy from the South raised his hand and said, “I’m not going to do that.” The bureaucrat started to argue with him, which broke the wall of polite silence, and many of the Aquatics Directors-in-training joined in saying, “Yeah, I’m not going to do that, either. Are you crazy?”

  Wonder how often the Vatican will run into the same situation.

  I also wonder how many Vatican memos have used the word “gaydar.”

  Speaking of kinkiness . . .

• . . . once again the Worcester Public Library brings you Rocky Horror Picture Show. As square a venue as the library is, they’ve upped the ante by showing the film at 2 o’clock on Saturday afternoon!