Author: Mike

Items

  • There will not be much Worcester news on this blog for the next couple weeks; I’m heading for the Catholic Peace Fellowship gathering in Indiana. Retreat leaders will include Paul Keim, Kathy Kelly, Bishop John Michael Botean, and Father Daniel Berrigan, SJ.
  • Worcester Magazine reports on a “west side crimewave” that neighbors are blaming on the hobo jungle in Beaver Brook Park.

    Word on the street is that the guys are vacating the lot now anyway as the weather turns cold. I think as many as a dozen people were sleeping there over the summer, although the cops would periodically raid the area and arrest some of the guys. When they were released from jail, they’d head right back to Beaver Brook.

    Also in WoMag, Phil Reid presents his vision for a compassionate city.

  • Catholic schoolteacher Stephen Kobasa lost his job because a new policy clashed with his longstanding distaste for saying the Pledge of Allegiance and for posting a flag in his classroom. The full story is worth reading.
  • The latest Pit Stop Ploughshares trial is coming up in Ireland. The last one ended in an early mistrial.
  • The South Bend Catholic Worker, which the city is trying to shut down through zoning violations, is playing the zoning game itself, thus far with no luck.

    Members of the Area Plan Commission of St. Joseph County voted to recommend that the South Bend Common Council turn down a request that zoning of the house at 1126 W. Washington St. be changed from single family to multifamily.

    (Full story in South Bend Tribune)

Fasting and Eating and Understanding

Today is Yom Kippur. It’s also Ramadan. Many are fasting today, and many who would not fast ordinarily are joining them. So if you see a bunch of people looking cranky and repentant, that’s what’s going on.

Yesterday was the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in Worcester. I’d heard of “prayer breakfasts,” but I’d never been to one, so I did a little research and found the Prayer Breakfast Network. Their website does not feature symbols of religion (Christian cross, Jewish star, Muslim crescent, Buddhist wheel) or breakfast (Northern bagel, Southern grits, Western omelette), just a bunch of American flags. Their spiritual heritage page is entirely about Anglo-Saxon Protestantism.

Maybe some towns could have a monocultural prayer breakfast like that, but not Worcester. The breakfast emcee was a rabbi, the opening prayer was by a Catholic bishop, the opening speech was by a city employee identified as a Unitarian, the keynote speaker was Bernard Lafayette (Baptist minister, among other things), and the closing prayer was by representatives from Hillel and the Islamic Society.

Then an Indian man who’d known Gandhi read a poem!

Stuff like that, and the City Council’s choosing religious tolerance over mosque wiretapping, makes me happy to be in Worcester.

Here’s another story that makes me happy to be in Worcester. It’s about some folks who decided to meet their new neighbors instead of fearing them. As told in Worcester’s Catholic Free Press:
Continue reading “Fasting and Eating and Understanding”

Social Service Siting Report and other items

The report of the “Mayor’s Social Service Task Force” is not yet public, but already plenty of folks in Worcester have their hands on it and are discussing it.

Worcester Magazine leaked the guts of the report yesterday.

Let’s look at what they said. I’ll comment in much more detail once the report is no longer confidential.
Continue reading “Social Service Siting Report and other items”

The Re-Dedication of St. John’s Church

The first thing you’d notice upon entering the church: There’s no holy water.

The second thing: The tabernacle is wide open, empty.

Last September, the ceiling of St. John’s Church fell in.

Today, October 2, all the repairs were completed, and it was re-dedicated by Most Rev. Robert P. McManus, Bishop of Worcester.

The concelebrants were Msgr. Edmond Tinsley and Rev. John Madden, who is the administrator of St. John’s.
Continue reading “The Re-Dedication of St. John’s Church”

Daniel Berrigan, Societas Iesu

All My Heroes Have FBI FilesFirst century Christians were seen as a threat to the powerful. Twenty-first century Christians are not. (First century Christian hipsters probably wore buttons reading: “All My Heroes Are Martyrs.”)

Last night, Father Dan Berrigan, Jesuit priest and FBI “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” laureate, read some of his poetry about war at Worcester’s College of the Holy Cross.

A noted anti-war activist, his most spectacular crimes are behind him, but his example continues to inspire others.
Continue reading “Daniel Berrigan, Societas Iesu”

Arguing against the Iraq War/SP4 verdict in

The St. Patrick’s Four were acquitted of conspiracy to impede a federal officer in connection with a nonviolent 2003 demonstration against the Iraq War. (The jury found them guilty of misdemeanor charges of property damage and trespassing.)

This means it’s still OK to demonstrate against the war.

100,000+ demonstrated against the Iraq War in DC this weekend.

I was one of 30 in Worcester demonstrating against it.

For every person demonstrating against it, probably 10 people are blogging against it.

The best “US out of Iraq NOW” posts of the weekend are from Billmon and Juan Cole. Running Scared has a good summary of the latest arguments.

I recommend these posts because they might help you articulate these “out NOW” arguments to others. Especially those who prefer: “US Out of Iraq, But Not Yet.” (Several P&C contributors are leaning that way.)

Every week in Worcester we have a demonstration against the war–it’s been going on for years. (I recall demonstrating with a “No War On Iraq” sign in May 2002; I can’t recall what news item prompted this.)

Most drivers encourage us, but people still flip us off, too. I wish I had a way to reach out to these folks. Maybe you need a 500-word essay to articulate the argument, and not a 5-word sign.

I went to jury duty today. In our state there is a “one day or one trial” policy, and since they had more than enough juries for the day, my group was sent home without ever entering a courtroom.

Trial of the St. Patrick’s Four and other items

St. Patricks\' Four sign

  • Today begins the trial of four Catholic Workers from Ithaca, New York who poured blood around the vestibule of a military recruiting office.

    They wanted the fresh recruits, the ones they believed had been seduced by video games and government lies, to see the blood and think about those destined to shed it: the Iraqi people and American soldiers. They refused to leave and prayed while they waited to be arrested.
    (New York Times)

    They were tried in a local court, and had a hung jury. Nine of the twelve jurors voted to acquit.

    After that, federal charges were brought against them for the same incident.

    Running Scared has done a good job of blogging the trial. See also: St. Patrick’s Four, the Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton IndyMedia, and WICZ (a Fox affiliate that some on the scene think is doing the best reporting job).

    This is the dark side of our legal system. It’s gone beyond justice to raw, hungry vengeance.

    “Anyone who disagrees with this administration and dares to show it gets the crap beat out of them.”
    (Associated Press)

  • All that is good in the world is summed up by the Worcester Tornadoes’ Can-Am League championship! Cheap, independent baseball; good times; and the big win at the end.

    The Tornadoes don’t really have a good nickname. The local paper calls them the ‘Nadoes.

    Ralph NaderBut how about the ‘Naders?

    Or the ‘Nads?

  • Vern sums up all that is bad in the world with his review of the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards.

    Quoth Vern:

    The weird thing is, it turns out the ’80s could’ve been worse.

    and

    It was like Caligula without the bestiality.

    and

    So what did we do? Were we fiddling while Rome was burning? Well no, it wasn’t a real fiddle, it was keyboards.

“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.

    Real Solutions press conference at City Hall, Worcester, Mass.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!