Comments on: Losing My Religion http://american-rattlesnake.org/2010/10/losing-my-religion/ Immigration News, Analysis, and Activism Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:05:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Dan Hand http://american-rattlesnake.org/2010/10/losing-my-religion/#comment-139 Dan Hand Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:35:51 +0000 http://american-rattlesnake.org/?p=1122#comment-139 SPEAK OF THE DEVIL (SO AS TO SPEAK) . . . *** "Two Americans are on today’s list, and neither a surprise, considering the positions they hold: Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis. "Burke is the head of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, roughly the equivalent of the Vatican’s Supreme Court. He infuriated liberal Catholics during the 2004 election season when he said that John Kerry would not be welcome to receive communion in St. Louis because of his position on abortion. "He has also said that Catholic politicians who have supported abortion rights and confused the faithful by doing so should repent and do public penance." [http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/20/pope-names-two-new-american-cardinals/?test=latestnews] *** I saw (now-Prefect) Raymond (soon-to-be-Cardinal) Burke ordained in Saint Peter's Square, on Sunday evening, 29 June 1975-- alongside my own brother! The latter was just at a 35th-anniversary get-together in Rome with many of his classmates, including the two aforementioned cardinals, who hosted the rest. I would assume that Prefect Burke, as a local resident within the Vatican these days, was also there for the festivities in June. SPEAK OF THE DEVIL (SO AS TO SPEAK) . . .

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“Two Americans are on today’s list, and neither a surprise, considering the positions they hold: Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis.

“Burke is the head of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, roughly the equivalent of the Vatican’s Supreme Court. He infuriated liberal Catholics during the 2004 election season when he said that John Kerry would not be welcome to receive communion in St. Louis because of his position on abortion.

“He has also said that Catholic politicians who have supported abortion rights and confused the faithful by doing so should repent and do public penance.”

[http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/20/pope-names-two-new-american-cardinals/?test=latestnews]

***

I saw (now-Prefect) Raymond (soon-to-be-Cardinal) Burke ordained in Saint Peter’s Square, on Sunday evening, 29 June 1975– alongside my own brother! The latter was just at a 35th-anniversary get-together in Rome with many of his classmates, including the two aforementioned cardinals, who hosted the rest. I would assume that Prefect Burke, as a local resident within the Vatican these days, was also there for the festivities in June.

]]> By: G. Perry http://american-rattlesnake.org/2010/10/losing-my-religion/#comment-137 G. Perry Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:19:52 +0000 http://american-rattlesnake.org/?p=1122#comment-137 Ah, the Fighting Irish. The default college football team for New York's Roman Catholics. Ah, the Fighting Irish. The default college football team for New York’s Roman Catholics.

]]> By: Dan Hand http://american-rattlesnake.org/2010/10/losing-my-religion/#comment-135 Dan Hand Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:05:58 +0000 http://american-rattlesnake.org/?p=1122#comment-135 My brother met a lot of interesting-- and occasionally famous-- people as a result of his years in Rome. (That was in addition to the fact that his friend Coley O'Brien was the back-up quarterback-- like the injured Terry Hanratty, just a sophomore-- who led Notre Dame back from an early 10-0 deficit to tie Michigan State in 1966's version of "The Game of the Century" and, then, led the Irish to a 51-0 rout over USC at the L.A. Coliseum, one week later, to secure the school's first national football championship in thirteen years.) Many of his classmates from the Pontifical North American College are now bishops, with a couple of others being cardinals. The newish Archbishop of New York (and presumably another cardinal-in-waiting), Timothy Dolan, was one year behind my brother in Rome. My brother met a lot of interesting– and occasionally famous– people as a result of his years in Rome. (That was in addition to the fact that his friend Coley O’Brien was the back-up quarterback– like the injured Terry Hanratty, just a sophomore– who led Notre Dame back from an early 10-0 deficit to tie Michigan State in 1966′s version of “The Game of the Century” and, then, led the Irish to a 51-0 rout over USC at the L.A. Coliseum, one week later, to secure the school’s first national football championship in thirteen years.) Many of his classmates from the Pontifical North American College are now bishops, with a couple of others being cardinals. The newish Archbishop of New York (and presumably another cardinal-in-waiting), Timothy Dolan, was one year behind my brother in Rome.

]]> By: G. Perry http://american-rattlesnake.org/2010/10/losing-my-religion/#comment-134 G. Perry Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:25:44 +0000 http://american-rattlesnake.org/?p=1122#comment-134 None of my Roman Catholic relatives ever joined the priesthood, although one of my late father's cousins was tempted. Thankfully, he chose another path and decided to become a scholar of post-Stalinist Europe and a paleoconservative intellectual. <a href="http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Jowitt/jowitt-con1.html" rel="nofollow"> Ken Jowitt Interview </a> None of my Roman Catholic relatives ever joined the priesthood, although one of my late father’s cousins was tempted. Thankfully, he chose another path and decided to become a scholar of post-Stalinist Europe and a paleoconservative intellectual.

Ken Jowitt Interview

]]> By: Dan Hand http://american-rattlesnake.org/2010/10/losing-my-religion/#comment-133 Dan Hand Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:40:56 +0000 http://american-rattlesnake.org/?p=1122#comment-133 The Catholic Church in America, needless to say, has a very practical and down-to-Earth reason for supporting open borders: due to both poverty and propinquity, most of our current immigrants, legal and illegal, are from Latin America-- and they arrive here, at least, overwhelmingly in the fold of the Roman Catholic Church. (Once away from their respective homelands, however, many of them drift away from it, either because they are not interested in religion, once the social pressure to be ostensibly Catholic is relaxed or removed, or because they actually prefer the intense nature of evangelical Christianity to the relative staidness of Catholicism.) The Church's hierarchy in America believes-- not wholly irrationally-- that the future of the Church in America is tied to the rising tide of our Hispanic population. How the rest of us-- including those non-Hispanic white Catholics who no longer choose to fill the pews of their local parishes on Sunday mornings (or Saturday evenings), much less during the week-- may feel or be affected by that Third World influx is not at the top of the hierarchy's concerns for the future. Having lots of poor and relatively devout (or, at least, superstitious) peasants who come mostly from a common culture in which social stasis and conformity to the authoritarian, and often-harsh, will of the (mostly white) upper class are ingrained in them, as if in their very DNA, is what appeals to the American Church, and to the sharp and very practical minds of its leadership. [DISCLAIMER: I have a beloved brother who is-- by choice, despite having been groomed for Church leadership at the Pontifical North American College in Rome-- a quasi-impoverished parish priest in a small town in El Salvador. I do not share his views on a number of issues, worldly and otherworldly, however, including, apropos of this blog entry, his sympathetic views on international migration.] As for the Jews, Judaism has nothing to do with it-- as one may note, if one merely looks at the restrictive immigration policies of the so-called Jewish state, the outsize power and influence of that state's minority of religious Jews notwithstanding. Organized Jewry has been the leading proponent in this country of open borders since (at least) the late 19th Century. That support has everything to do with the worldview of the Jewish people, whether religious or secular: the more demographically divided a host country's population is, the better it is for that country's small Jewish minority. Whether a rabbi is citing the Torah, or a "New York Times" op-ed writer is waxing nostalgic about ancestors from Czarist Russia arriving at the Golden Door and passing through Ellis Island's turnstiles, it is all window dressing for the same Jewish urge to live in a society in which no group is demographically cohesive enough to threaten the interests of the Jewish minority living in that society. The Catholic Church in America, needless to say, has a very practical and down-to-Earth reason for supporting open borders: due to both poverty and propinquity, most of our current immigrants, legal and illegal, are from Latin America– and they arrive here, at least, overwhelmingly in the fold of the Roman Catholic Church. (Once away from their respective homelands, however, many of them drift away from it, either because they are not interested in religion, once the social pressure to be ostensibly Catholic is relaxed or removed, or because they actually prefer the intense nature of evangelical Christianity to the relative staidness of Catholicism.) The Church’s hierarchy in America believes– not wholly irrationally– that the future of the Church in America is tied to the rising tide of our Hispanic population. How the rest of us– including those non-Hispanic white Catholics who no longer choose to fill the pews of their local parishes on Sunday mornings (or Saturday evenings), much less during the week– may feel or be affected by that Third World influx is not at the top of the hierarchy’s concerns for the future. Having lots of poor and relatively devout (or, at least, superstitious) peasants who come mostly from a common culture in which social stasis and conformity to the authoritarian, and often-harsh, will of the (mostly white) upper class are ingrained in them, as if in their very DNA, is what appeals to the American Church, and to the sharp and very practical minds of its leadership. [DISCLAIMER: I have a beloved brother who is-- by choice, despite having been groomed for Church leadership at the Pontifical North American College in Rome-- a quasi-impoverished parish priest in a small town in El Salvador. I do not share his views on a number of issues, worldly and otherworldly, however, including, apropos of this blog entry, his sympathetic views on international migration.]

As for the Jews, Judaism has nothing to do with it– as one may note, if one merely looks at the restrictive immigration policies of the so-called Jewish state, the outsize power and influence of that state’s minority of religious Jews notwithstanding. Organized Jewry has been the leading proponent in this country of open borders since (at least) the late 19th Century. That support has everything to do with the worldview of the Jewish people, whether religious or secular: the more demographically divided a host country’s population is, the better it is for that country’s small Jewish minority. Whether a rabbi is citing the Torah, or a “New York Times” op-ed writer is waxing nostalgic about ancestors from Czarist Russia arriving at the Golden Door and passing through Ellis Island’s turnstiles, it is all window dressing for the same Jewish urge to live in a society in which no group is demographically cohesive enough to threaten the interests of the Jewish minority living in that society.

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