Nuns prevented from voting in Indiana

In the comments to the post about the Israel Bible Quiz, Stan Meyer said that Jim Crow is alive and well. Maybe, maybe not. But at least the spirit of exclusionary laws were evident last night in Indiana when nuns were turned away from the polls for lack of ID.

The nuns, all residents of a retirement home at Saint Mary's Convent near Notre Dame University, were denied ballots by a fellow sister and poll worker because the women, in their 80s and 90s, did not have valid Indiana photo ID cards.

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"It's the law, and it makes it hard," said Sister Julie McGuire, who was working at the polling place and had to explain to the nuns that they could not vote. "Some don't understand why."

Indiana requires voters who come to the polls show a photo ID issued by the state or the federal government. The law was pressed by Republicans citing voter fraud and opposed by Democrats and the ACLU, who argued that it would disenfranchise voters.

Parish donates $1.5 million to abuse victims

The Catholic clergy sex scandal has caused not just physical but also financial pain, only the victims are different. (Much of the cost was absorbed by insurers and religious orders.) The L.A. Archdiocese recently sold its headquarters to offset a $660 million -- ! -- settlement, a payout for which Cardinal Roger Mahony was reportedly assaulted. And now one of the cardinal's parish in my old 'hood has stepped forward to help foot the bill.

St. Bernardine of Siena Parish in Woodland Hills has donated nearly $1.5 million of its savings to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to help fund last year's multimillion-dollar settlement of clergy sex abuse cases.

The donation is unprecedented in the archdiocese, which has called on 101 churches with identified savings of at least $1 million each to help offset the more than $660 million payout to victims of clergy sexual abuse, according to archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg.

"While it may not sit well with everyone in the parish, it is an extraordinary gesture of community and family on the part of St. Bernardine Parish," said Tamberg, who called the gift "emotionally moving."

This story from the LA Daily News is moving, as Tamberg says; it's encouraging to see the church body step forward and support its leaders. If only those leaders had supported the church body when the seeds of this sorrow were being sown.

(Hat tip: LAObserved)

The vanishing American Catholic

The changing landscape of American Catholicism -- the fact that 1.3 million Latino Catholics have joined Pentecostal churches since immigrating -- is considered the elephant in the room for the future of the church. Still, it's story that has been told before, and in light of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States this week, and maybe in order to fill all that copy dedicated to his trip, it's being told again here.

“I feel whole here,” Mrs. Calazans, 42, said one recent Sunday in the Astoria sanctuary, the Portuguese Language Pentecostal Missionary Church, as she swayed to the pop-rock beat of a live gospel band. “This church is not a place we visit once a week. This church is where we hang around and we share our problems and we celebrate our successes, like we were family.”

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For if Latinos are feeding the population of the church, many have also turned to Pentecostalism, a form of evangelical Christianity that stresses a personal, even visceral, connection with God.

Today, it has more Latino followers in the United States than any other denomination except Catholicism; they are drawn, they say, by the faith’s joyous worship, its use of Latino culture and the enveloping sense of community it offers to newcomers. As the Pew survey revealed, half of all Latinos who have joined Pentecostal denominations were raised as Catholics.

They are part of a global shift. Pentecostalism, the world’s fastest-growing branch of Christianity, has made such sharp inroads in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, that in an address to bishops there last year, Pope Benedict listed its ardent proselytizing as one of the major forces the Catholic Church must contend with in the region.

Benedict's visit concludes today with a packed Mass at Yankees Stadium.

Pope says pedophiles can't be priests

Pope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday that following the Roman Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandals in the United States, the church is reviewing candidates for the priesthood with the objective of excluding those with a tendency to molest children.

Speaking to reporters on an airplane taking him for his first visit to the United States as pope, he addressed the scandal in the U.S. that has produced more than 5,000 sexual abuse victims since it erupted in 2002 and cost the church more than $2 billion.

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” he said. “As I read the histories of those victims it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”

Apparently drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the Pontiff said “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.”

“Who is guilty of pedophilia cannot be a priest,” he added.

The Pope said church officials were going through the seminaries that train would-be priests to make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. “We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment, because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests."

This from the NY Times. It seems like such a simple declaration, and yet it has taken so many years and cost so much pain for it to be made. Here's more on the pope's visit.

(That's a cutout image of the pontiff from the Mercury News.)

Pope baptizes pro-Israel Muslim

VATICAN CITY - Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

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He did not speak to the press Saturday and his newspaper said it had no information about his conversion.

Allam said in the interview that he had made a pilgrimage to Mecca, as is required of all Muslims, with his deeply religious mother in 1991, although he was not otherwise observant.

"I was never practicing," he was quoted as saying. "I never prayed five times a day, facing Mecca. I never fasted during Ramadan."

Allam also explained his decision to title a recent book "Viva Israele" by saying he wrote it after he received death threats from Hamas.

"Having been condemned to death, I have reflected a long time on the value of life. And I discovered that behind the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is the discrimination against Israel. Everyone has the right to exist except for the Jewish state and its inhabitants," he said. "Today, Israel is the paradigm of the right to life."

Read the rest here.

'Hitler's Pope' a Zionist sympathizer?

He's been called "Hitler's Pope" and his name has been intrinsically tied to a worldly ambivalence to the Holocaust as it happened. For the past six decades, plenty of people have debated whether Pope Pius XII was actually an anti-Semite or simply blind, and the record has not been cleared.

Ruth Gledhill, who writes the Articles of Faith blog, reports that newly unearthed evidence further complicates the quest for understanding the pontiff formerly known as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli.

In 1917, it seems, Pacelli arranged for a meeting between Nahum Sokolow, the leading Zionist publisher, and Pope Benedict XV. It's difficult to infer from this meeting what the future pope thought. He is merely a facilitator. But the exchange does offer some interesting, and ironic, insight into the efforts to create a Jewish state.

Sokolov arrived in Rome about three weeks later, and on the 10th May, after conferring with Monsignor Pacelli, he was received by Benedict XV. It was as though Herzl's audience was being annulled. 'Have I correctly understood Zionism?' asked the Pope when the opening formalities were over. 'What a reversal of history! Nineteen centuries ago Rome destroyed Jerusalem, and now, desiring to rebuild it, you take the path to Rome!'

In his reply Sokolov recalled the fate of the Empire and compared it to that of the Jewish nation: one had vanished, the other was reclaiming its land.

'Yes, yes,' agreed Benedict with enthusiasm, 'this was providential. God willed it.'

The Pope then asked Sokolov to explain the Zionist project in detail. Sokolov answered as follows: 'Our programme is twofold. It aims first to create in Palestine a spiritual and cultural centre for Jewry, and secondly to establish a national home for oppressed Jews. Our desire is to build up in that country a great centre where Jews will be able to develop their culture freely, to educate their children in the spirit of their ideals, and to devote all their energies to making their National Home a model of Jewish civilisation and morality.'

The Pope was deeply impressed. 'That is a wonderful idea,' he said. Then he wanted to know whether this plan had been contrived with a view to preventing persecutions. Sokolov answered in the rhetorical terms which came naturally to him. He referred to the right of the Jews 'to a place in the sun—in our land.'

'We look forward,' he said, 'to the rebirth of historical Judaism, to the spiritual and material revival of the homeland that personifies our national genius and our Biblical tradition in its purest sense. We claim the right of Freedom which cannot be denied to any people.'

Traditionalists: 'Pope has felt obliged to change the very venerable prayer for the Jews'

No surprise here regarding the new language for the Tridentine Mass, which will be uttered in four Fridays. The traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X issued a statement over the weekend that it was none too happy that language regarding the conversion of Jews was watered down in the Good Friday prayer.

“Following foreign pressures on the Catholic Church, the pope has felt obliged to change the very venerable Prayer for the Jews, which is an integral part of the Good Friday liturgy. This prayer is one of the oldest and goes back to about the third century. It has thus been recited throughout the whole history of the Church as the full expression of Catholic faith.

The SPPX said the change, which it called an “amputation,” had “the allure of a real transformation, expressing the new theology of relations with the Jewish people. It is part of the liturgical upheaval that is the characteristic mark of the council and the reforms that followed it. While the necessity to accept the Messiah to be saved has been retained, one can only profoundly deplore this change.”

'Jews should chill out'

Jewish organizations, like the ADL and AJC, were on edge last year after the pope announced he was softening restrictions on the Tridentine Mass, which before the Second Vatican Council had called for the conversion of "perfidious Jews." This op-ed in The Forward calls for an end to the "Tridentine Mass hysteria."

In this day and age, Jews should not be overreacting to Pope Benedict XVI’s revision of the Good Friday prayer calling for our people “to acknowledge Jesus Christ the Savior of all men.” A very small minority of Catholics saying these words in 2008 is very different in its threat to Jews than every Catholic saying these words in 1668.

Of course, it would have been wise and surely more comforting to Jews — not to mention educative to Catholics — if the pope, in permitting this prayer and rewriting it, had also recalled the historical violence that such prayers and attitudes evoked throughout history. But Jews should chill out rather than turn this into one more drama of how the world hates us.

Video from Vilna

The Web guy sent me an e-mail saying the Jewish Journal's forums were filled with conversation regarding the Jews on parade in Vilna.

This video shows the Lithuanian Catholic Carnival, streets filled with monsters and ghouls and, yep there it is 17 seconds in, an obnoxious Jew. I really don't understand how this can be a modern Christian observance.

Catholics against war to deliver ashes to Bush

This is the kind of stunt designed simply to drum up media hits, and I'll oblige. An e-mail from Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq just arrived in my inbox stating that the group will mark tomorrow, which is Ash Wednesday, by delivering ashes to the White House.

The use of ashes at the White House is a sign of atonement for President Bush’s war in Iraq, his continued support of torture and for his squandering of our nation’s moral leadership in the world.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a time when Catholics pray for forgiveness in preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Catholics believe that Jesus’ death was an act of atonement for personal and social sins.

Fr. Joe Nangle OFM, a Catholic priest serving at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Arlington, will be present to bless the ashes. “The use of ashes is an ancient and sacred sign that we are ultimately accountable to a higher power. If anyone needs this pastoral advice, it is President Bush.,” said Fr. Nangle.

LA Archdiocese sells headquarters

We knew this day was coming, and sadly, here it is.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660 million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.

Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries will move to office space on the grounds of a cemetery, Tamberg said. Others will consolidate in four of the building's floors that church officials will lease from the new owner, Tamberg said.

Tamberg did not know what would be on the building's other eight floors.

Converting Bobby Jindal

The Times-Picayune had a lengthy profile last week of Louisiana's new Gov. Bobby Jindal that focused on the India native's conversion to Catholicism and the role that has played in his political ascent.

When Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal converted to Catholicism during high school and college, he took a momentous step away from his inherited faith of Hinduism, the prevalent religion of his parents' generation and Indian homeland.

But among Jindal's relatives and among Hindus in India generally, his decision to adopt the Christian way is strongly supported.

Jindal's personal path to Christianity, which had politically significant ramifications for Louisiana, was aided by an open-minded attitude among his relatives about theology. Also, he visited India infrequently as a child, giving him little chance to acquire the deeply ingrained appreciation for Hindu culture that comes from exposure to daily life in that country.

His relatives' perspective reflects a tolerant side of a religion that for thousands of years has survived philosophical transformations, rebellious counter-religions and numerous sects, only to claim them all in time as part of the infinitely flexible cosmos of Hindu faith.

"If you find and see that you get more peace of mind, more solace, in that religion, then why not change religion?" said Jindal's uncle Subhash Gupta, a practicing Hindu. "In India, many people change to the Christian religion. And I can understand that some people maybe find Christian religion more satisfying to their needs."

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Although the relatives' opinions might seem magnanimous, their views are typically Hindu. India's large-circulation national newspapers viewed Jindal's election as front-page news, and for the most part his conversion to Catholicism was not commented upon negatively. Indian criticism of Jindal instead has centered on his infrequent visits and seeming lack of interest in his parents' home country.

The Indian national figure Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu so famous his image appears on most Indian currency, espoused religious tolerance because he believed there were many paths to God, so long as an individual was sincere in the pursuit of the divine way.

When asked about Jindal, Pandit Deoki Nandan Shastri, a Hindu holy man in Varanasi, made a similar point.

"Hindu is not a religion," he said. "Hinduism is a way of life."

"You pray to Christ, I pray to Rama, he prays to Mohammad," he said. "We are going the same way. God is one. His name is called a thousand names."

Sadly, such a liberal perspective is not universal in India, where Hindu fundamentalists poignantly remind the world that "religious extremist" is not just a code word for Islamic terrorist. Remember the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom five years ago that left 2,000 people dead, including a woman who's fetus was proudly ripped from her womb by this guy.


The fervency of Hindu nationalism is no secret; it gave birth to Pakistan and later Bangladesh. And India has had quite the history of violence against Christians, which sprang up again on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve, violence broke out against Christians in the Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, which has become well known for poor governance and class tensions. Hindu fundamentalist groups led by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council) have attacked Christians and their institutions at will in rural areas. Over 90 churches and Christian institutions have been burned and vandalized, over 700 Christian homes destroyed, and the number of pastors and Christians killed is yet to be known, according to a report by my colleagues in the All India Christian Council. A pastor in Chennai told me that 11 pastors have been killed and thousands of Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) Christians displaced. Compass Direct reports that the death count is at 9. Many people are missing, and others have vanished in the nearby forests.

Human Rights Watch and others have decried the present carnage in Orissa and have recognized that freedom of religious choice — especially in a democracy like India's — must be respected. The Prime Minister promised immediate action to restore peace in the state. But the affected areas are still reporting sporadic violence over two weeks since the attacks against Dalit Christians began.

Despite reports that Christians retaliated in some places, so far Dalit Freedom Network investigations and statements by the Orissa government indicate that Maoist rebels — called Naxalites — were behind the revenge attacks that left dozens of Hindu families homeless. Most Naxalites are armed Dalits, and their involvement gives evidence of the root problem: ancient caste divisions.

The author of this piece was Joseph D'Souza, whom I interviewed a few months ago for an article about the plight of the Dalits -- who dwell beneath the bottom of India's cast system -- that will appear in the February Christianity Today.

One of the biggest forms of discrimination meted out by the government is that Dalits who convert to Christianity or Islam lose their welfare eligibility. The same is not true if they converted to Buddhism or Sikhism. This often causes a dual identity.

"They will have their Hindu or pre-Christian indentity, sometimes keeping their Hindu name, because there is affirmative action and if they want to have the benefits of that, they cannot use their Christian name," Robert Eric Frykenberg, professor emeritus of history and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin, told me.

For more info about discrimination in India, I'll link to the article when it runs.

Ave Maria and the pizza man's unanswered prayers

Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, has been receiving a lot of attention for his ambitious -- and pious -- community-building project in Florida. One of my favorite writers at The New Yorker penned this piece last February about Monaghan's plans to build a Catholic seminary and city based on Catholic values, both bearing the name Ave Maria.

But, in another long piece, Portfolio reports that Ave Maria's in need of a miracle. (Cliche writing intentionally added.)

Monaghan and his partners—the Barron Collier Co., a major Florida real estate firm, and Pulte Homes, the country's third-largest residential builder—say it's too early to judge the viability of the project, which, after all, is still in its infancy. But the circumstances of Ave Maria's birth could not be more challenging. It was conceived in 2001, at the onset of the real estate boom, during which the median home price in Naples would double in just five years. The developers were originally hoping to construct 1,000 houses a year at Ave Maria, reaching a goal of 11,000 over the next decade, while also creating parks, shops, restaurants, and 500,000 square feet of office space. That's not going to happen, at least not at the pace the developers had hoped, for reasons that are both symbolic of wider market conditions and peculiar to the unique—and controversial—nature of Monaghan's project.

Ave Maria is coming into being at the dawn of the worst real estate recession since the early 1990s, in a place that could fairly be called the epicenter of the bust. According to one recent study, the Naples area is the spot in America most at risk for a steep drop in home prices. But the deeper problem may be a conflict between Monaghan and his partners over Ave Maria's identity. At this perilous juncture in the town's existence, they can't agree about how Catholic it should be. Barron Collier and Pulte, both of which are far more interested in profits than prophets, are downplaying the role of religion in the town's development, marketing Ave Maria as a place no more intrinsically Catholic than St. Louis or Corpus Christi, Texas.

But Monaghan and the believers who surround him say that the town's religious character is its great strength, not only spiritually but commercially. They worry that by pitching the development to home buyers as just another anodyne suburb, Barron Collier and Pulte risk alienating the very people most inclined to make Ave Maria their home. "I wonder sometimes whether they don't treat this as if it's the same as every other development they do," Monaghan says of his secular partners. "I think if they put a lot of money into marketing to the general population, they might be wasting a lot of it."

Early indications suggest he may be right.

Which raises the question of the day: Would you want to live in a town of not only homogeneous religious beliefs but also moral values?

'Judge orders priest to recite Psalms for parking illegally'

From CNN:

A judge in southern Chile has sentenced a Catholic priest to recite psalms daily during three months as punishment for a traffic violation.

Judge Manuel Perez said he issued the unusual sentence after Father Jose Cornejo said he could not afford the 50,000-peso ($100) fine that would have been the regular sanction for illegal parking in the city of Puerto Montt.

"He will have to recite seven psalms from a book in the Old Testament," Judge Perez told the Santiago daily La Tercera.

"This is not a sentence that just occurred to me," he added.

"I did it as a tribute to Galileo Galilei, one of the greatest scientists of all time, who received a similar sentence from the Catholic Church during three years for saying the Earth rotates around the sun."

(Hat tip: Affad)

Pope attacks 'climate change prophets of doom'

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

And I thought President Bush was a Methodist.

However, when the reporter for the Daily Mail got to the meat of the pope's statement, which will be part of his message for World Peace Day in January, I had to agree.

"Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow," he said in the message entitled "The Human Family, A Community of Peace".

"It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.

"If the protection of the environment involves costs, they should be justly distributed, taking due account of the different levels of development of various countries and the need for solidarity with future generations.

"Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken."

In other papal news, the Vatican will issue Friday a doctrinal document on "some aspects of evangelisation."

(Hat tip: Luke Ford)

Cardinal Mahony assaulted because of clergy scandal

The LA Daily News reported today that shortly after the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a massive settlement with victims of pedophile priests that Cardinal Roger Mahony was beaten up outside Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels.

Mahony, 71, revealed the attack during an annual conference in October before hundreds of stunned priests, saying a man assaulted him because of the scandal, according to four priests who attended the conference.

News of the assault comes as the bulk of the church's $660 million settlement with victims began being paid out Monday, with more than $500 million in checks going out in the mail. The settlement with 508 alleged victims was approved by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge July 16.

The attack on Mahony occurred in July near Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, and it took the cardinal about a month to heal, said the Rev. Sal Pilato, principal at Junipero Serra Catholic High School in Gardena. The cardinal was dropping off letters at a mailbox when he was assaulted, priests said.

"Somebody recognized him and attacked him," Pilato said Mahony told the gathering. "It was shocking because it was an act of violence and it was someone we know and respect."

Mahony declined to comment on the reports.

"Whatever conversation might have taken place between the priests and their bishop was a private conversation and not meant to be public," said Carolina Guevara, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
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Mahony told the priests that after his attacker recognized him, the man began shouting expletives and knocked him to the ground, said another priest who asked not be identified.

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It was not known whether Mahony's attacker was a victim.

Those at the October conference at Our Lady of the Angels said Mahony shared the story about the assault within the context of the sexual-abuse scandal. Priests described the confession as both deeply moving and, because of the violence, disturbing.

Mahony was telling the priests they all had a price to pay for the sexual abuses perpetrated by their brethren when he relayed the story of the assault as an example of the personal toll he's endured, several priests said.

I believe that Cardinal Mahony is sincerely sorry for the behavior some of his parish priests exhibited before and after he took charge of the archdiocese in 1985. I can even accept that church officials thought sending pedophiles to therapy instead of reporting them to police was in the best interest of everyone. But, considering Mahony's legacy, Father Joseph Shea's intimation that he took the attack like a sacrificial lamb -- "Like Jesus, we must offer our lives and even suffer for Christ, even for things we didn't do" -- is a bit sickening.

(Hat tip: Brent Hopkins)

Vatican ambassador on Israel: 'Better when there were no diplomatic relations'

The Vatican's former ambassador to Israel has some frank words about his faith in relations with the Jewish state.

Italians have a wonderful phrase they use when things don’t work out as they had hoped: “It was better when it was worse.”

That was the thrust of controversial comments about the Catholic Church’s relations with Israel by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, currently the Vatican’s nuncio (ambassador) to the United States and formerly the papal envoy to the Jewish state.

Sambi, who was nuncio in Israel from 1998-2005, could not have been clearer about his discontent: “If I must be frank, relations between the Catholic Church and the state of Israel were better when there were no diplomaticrelations.”

He goes on in a long interview with www. terrasanta.net, an Italian on-line publication of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. FaithWorld has more of his opinions in English.

I want to pause here and note how easy it would be to turn this into a watershed moment for Catholic-Jewish relations, a revert back to 1960 or, worse, 1492. Sambi, it seems, is not trying to incite a pogrom or propagating the blood libel. He is reflecting on his experience with the Israeli government. (Yes, this is certainly questionable timing considering the peace summit at Annapolis next week.)

The Catholic culture regarding Jews has significantly improved during the last two papacies. Pope John Paul II was, of course, beloved by Jewish leaders, not least for his memorable visit in 2000 to Israel and the Western Wall. The German-born Pope Benedict XVI, who served in the Hitler Youth, also has proven a better friend of world Jewry than many expected.

Catholic bishops turned away from Western Wall

Should crucifixes and other evocative Christian images be barred from the Western Wall? I just got off the phone with an Orthodox rabbi who wasn't so sure what the right response would have been when a group of Catholic bishops approached the Kotel yesterday in fall Christian regalia.

Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch refused to give the bishops access to the site and avoided meeting the ecclesiastic delegation of approximately 20, led by Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schonborn.

Rabinovitch denied that the incident, which took place Thursday, smacked of religious intolerance.

"Crosses are a symbol that hurts Jewish feelings," said Rabinovitch who refused to elaborate on precisely how or why the crosses were so offensive.

"I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a Church. I would be the first to rebuke such a Jew for not behaving like a mensch." Rabinovitch added that he was surprised the Catholic clerics refused to hide their crosses.

"They did not have to take them off, just hide them. I've never encountered a Christian who has refused, including the Pope."

This reminds me a bit of Ariel Sharon's military-led visit to the Temple Mount in 2000, only the bishops' visit, thank God, has not sparked a guerrilla war.

Priest arrested for stalking Conan O'Brien

A priest has been arrested on charges of stalking late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien by writing him threatening notes on parish letterhead, contacting his parents and showing up at his studio, prosecutors said Wednesday.

"I want a public confession before I ever consider giving you absolution _ or a spot on your couch," wrote the Rev. David Ajemian, who signed the notes "Padre," said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Ajemian, from the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested last week while trying to enter a taping session of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, near where other NBC shows are taped and the famous Christmas tree is put up, Thompson said.

Court papers say Ajemian referred to himself as "your priest stalker" in one note and complained of not being allowed in to see an earlier taping of the O'Brien show.

"Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans?" the note said.

Well, at least Ajemian wasn't arrested for the other crime that in recent years has been attached to Catholic priests.

Bishop: Parishioners should pay for pedophile priests

So let me see if I've got this right: The Catholic Church shelters pedophile priests, endangering thousands of children across the country, and then when the bill comes due for all this sexual abuse, the San Diego Diocese asks the friends and family and neighbors of those who were abused to help pay?

"The people who are actually culpable, a lot of them are dead, and among the rest of us, nobody has any more culpability than anyone else," said Sheridan, a homemaker. "But I do think the Vatican can sell a painting or two. That would pay for it."

Still, some said they would gladly support Brom.

"This is our church and we love it," said Marie English, 76, a member at St. Mary. "If the church needs help, how can we deny it? Sometimes you have to pay for problems you didn't cause -- that's life. Let's pay and move on."

Oh, don't worry, Bishop Robert Brom has also asked parish priests to chip in for the $198 million bill. He's got a real global (catholic?) perspective. And I thought Cardinal Roger Mahony was out of touch.