Advice for November 6: Choose your battle wisely

Vice-President Aaron Burr spoils his political career by
killing former treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.

Yesterday during the Prayers of the People at St Barnabas, someone in the congregation spontaneously thanked God that the American election season is almost over. Everyone laughed.

One reason this election has brought out the worst in us is that we are fighting two battles at once. I fear that, no matter who wins the presidency, we will continue to fight these battles. We will probably still be fighting them in 2016.

We are fighting an economic battle between those who believe that the federal government should spend tax dollars on the military and little else, and those who believe that the federal government should also play a major role in assuring health care for all, supporting the indigent and elderly, rebuilding our infrastructure, and aiding disaster-stricken areas.

At the same time, we are fighting a moral battle between those who believe the federal government should allow individuals the freedom to decide whom to marry and whether to carry a child to term, and those who believe the federal government should outlaw abortion and recognize only heterosexual marriages.

The two major parties have divided up our concerns in unexpected ways. The Democratic ticket is communitarian in economics and libertarian in morals; the Republican ticket is just the reverse. This creates a problem for people who are consistently communitarian or libertarian.

A lot of students at Miami University of Ohio, as Bill Keller points out today in "The Republican Id," are consistently libertarian: they are enthusiastic about Republican economics but reject Republican morals. For them, economics trumps morals: the majority support Romney.

Most Catholic bishops, on the other hand, are consistently communitarian: they support Democratic economics but reject Democratic morals. For many bishops, morals trump economics (see David Gibson, "Catholic bishops make last-minute push for Romney"): they too support Romney.

The students are far smarter than the bishops.

If Romney and Ryan are elected, there's a good chance that federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will be gutted (click here for five good reasons to be worried, even if you're over 55), along with smaller programs such as highway construction, education, and food stamps. There's not much chance, however, that abortion or gay marriage will go away. Overturning Roe v. Wade would not outlaw abortion; it would return the question to the states. As long as a woman had enough money, she could simply travel to wherever abortion was available.

If you're a student at a highly rated university like Miami, you probably figure you'll be one of the elites that would be helped by Romney/Ryan economics. As one of those elites, you could find your way around Republican moral strictures. So yes, as long as you're not concerned about people who haven't done as well as you, it makes sense for you to vote for survival of the fittest. (In a decade or two you may discover you're less fit than you thought you were, but you can vote differently then.)

The Catholic bishops, on the other hand, are showing themselves to be as wise as doves and as harmless as serpents. Even if they get their way - in the name of religious liberty! - Americans will continue to use contraception. They will continue to marry or live with whomever they please. They will continue to get far too many abortions (though if abortion goes underground, a lot more women will die).

Catholic bishops have little effect on American morals (even among their own parishioners: click here to see statistics on abortion rates and here to see statistics on contraceptive use among Catholics), but if they tip the election to Romney/Ryan, they may have a major effect on American economics - an effect that goes against more than a century of Catholic social teaching. In the name of freedom and small government, more families will struggle to put food on the table, to send their children to college, to find adequate housing, to care for their aging parents. Americans will continue to die younger than people in countries with universal health care. Our highways and bridges will deteriorate, and environmental pollution will increase. We may tumble back into recession or even depression.

Here's my point. Our next president's policies will probably have a major effect on America's economic health and, very likely, the economic health of the world. His policies will probably have a minor effect, if any effect at all, on America's morals.

If you like Romney/Ryan's Darwinian proposals, if you think the financiers who are paying for their campaign will help the middle class, if you believe that trickle-down economics help the poor (or if you think the poor shouldn't be helped), if you think business can thrive in the absence of a strong infrastructure, if you think climate change is a hoax, and if you trust for-profit health insurance companies with your life, then by all means vote for Romney-Ryan.

Just don't think they're going to bring about moral renewal in America.

Good government, bad government--"everybody's confused"

Before beginning the next paragraph, please click here and listen to Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy performing "Only the Lord Knows." If you haven't already bought the whole album - it came out two years ago - you really should. Especially during this acrimonious election season. (I commented on it here.) Mavis and Jeff knew what was coming in 2012...

I pick up the paper, I put down the paper,

Turn on the TV, I get confused.

People on this side say the people on that side,

They lyin', say they lyin'--everybody's confused.

OK, now imagine taking a dozen or so suburban Catholics--some of them staunch conservatives, others committed liberals--and making them talk to one another about public policy for two and a half hours every Wednesday evening during the two months leading up to the election. Give the group a sexy name, like "Living Solidarity: Government, the Federal Budget and the Common Good" (such a name keeps a group's size manageable). Ask them what they think the government does well, and what it does badly. Try to keep them from killing each other.

Actually things went surprisingly smoothly at my parish's adult-ed group last week. The moderator told us repeatedly and in manifold ways that we must be polite to one another, and we were, even when talking about government successes and failures. And then we learned that one of our assignments would be to strike up a two-minute conversation with a stranger, each week on a different topic. This week's homework: "Ask someone you don't know: What is something you appreciate that government does? What is something you hate about what government does? Be specific."

Oh, right. If someone standing in line behind me at Trader Joe's tried that on me, I'd ask him to watch my cart while I dashed back to the produce department to pick up more broccoli rabe. No way am I going to let some political nut turn my peaceful shopping expedition into a shoot-out. And no way am I going to turn myself into an agent provocateur either.

So I put my questions on my Facebook page, Madame Neff's Salon, and discovered that some people hate speeding tickets while others appreciate them. Other than that, here are the answers I got:

What is something you appreciate that government (federal, state, or local) does?
Emergency services like fire, police, and ambulance. The Post Office, which--unlike FedEx, UPS, or the Pony Express--is required to serve all areas of the U.S. Schools. A good legal system. Enforcement of laws and rights: property rights, religious rights, right to protest, freedom of speech. OSHA. The FDA drug review. Health care. Programs that help poor people and those who experience disasters. Programs that guarantee clear air, water, safe food, safe buildings, etc. Roads, transportation,some communication. A state program for at-risk children that offered subsidized physical, occupational and speech therapy for our son. Medicare.

What is something you hate that government (federal, state, or local) does?
Picky laws: Prohibiting plastic bags. Outlawing marijuana. Banning large sugary drinks. Banning smoking outside. Subsidies to private enterprise (tax breaks, funding research and development, etc.) without demanding repayment or a share of profits. Unnecessary war. War without the approval of Congress. The salaries of elected or appointed government officials. Torture.

If I got back in line at Trader Joe's, broccoli rabe in hand, and still had to answer the questions, I'd probably tell the pushy stranger that I really like--or would like--excellent public education, universal health care, Social Security, interstate highways, food security programs, regulations to protect the environment, regulations to keep financial institutions honest, family health-care leave, paid maternity leave... well, by the time I got to that many points here in Republican DuPage County, I expect my interlocutor would have scooted into another check-out line, as far from me as possible.

But if he stayed to listen, I'd also tell him that I really hate the way our government--federal, state, and local--promises so many of these good things but then refuses to fund them. On a more personal level, I hate the way so many Americans think we should have more services but lower taxes. Read, for example, Greg Sargent's article in the August 2 Washington Post, "Americans hate government, but they love Medicare, Social Security, and environmental regulations."

I'm looking forward to hearing my classmates' opinions. I think we can manage not to throw overripe fruit at one another, especially if we keep in mind Mavis and Jeff's call to humility:

What to do, what to do now?--

Only the Lord knows, and he ain't you.

Listen to them!

52 years later, is the church threatened or threatening?

In 1960 when John F. Kennedy became the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, a lot of people panicked. The ironically named "Citizens for Religious Freedom," a group of some 150 evangelical and mainline Protestant leaders, issued a manifesto declaring that, in the words of the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, "Our American culture is at stake." With a Catholic at the helm, they feared, the pope would call the cards.

Fifty-two years ago today, Kennedy gave a memorable speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Telling the group of Protestant ministers that he believed in an America where "no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials," he promised that

whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with ... what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.

The speech probably gave him the edge he needed to win the presidency.

Fifty-two years later, six of the nine Supreme Court justices, 28% of the members of Congress, and both vice-presidential candidates are Catholics. Not everyone is happy with recent Catholic-supported efforts to limit access to abortion and contraception, but nobody seriously suggests that the pope is ruling America. In fact, it's the Catholic bishops who are panicking. "Across America, our right to live out our faith is being threatened," they warned parishioners in a recent bulletin insert.

Church and state have had a rocky relationship at least since the fourth century CE, when the emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and gave the keynote address at the Nicene Council. Should religious lobbying groups help to make public policy? Should public policy exempt religious groups from otherwise universal requirements? Yes, and yes, says the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. No, and no, says Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

The answers are not always clear. An enormous amount of spin (from all sides) has muddied the waters. If you are at all concerned that, in America today,

• the state has too much power over religion, or
• the church has too much influence on the state, or
• church and state are altogether too cozy with one another--

I recommend reading two short articles on this anniversary of the Houston speech.

First, read the speech itself. It is beautiful literature. Historically significant. As relevant today as in 1960. Still powerfully moving.

Then take Emily C. Health's perceptive quiz, "How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions."

Two political conventions, two Catholic leaders

New York's Cardinal Dolan may have tried to offend everybody in just eight days, though the Republicans seem not to have noticed his blessing on recent immigrants who have come to America in search of jobs. Democrats, however, did not miss his call for protection of the unborn, his veiled allusion to gay marriage, and his call for "religious freedom in full," which to him means freedom for Catholic institutions to deny contraceptive coverage to employees. (You can read the full text of both benedictions here.)

It must be tricky, being a bishop-politician. The Republican position on abortion sounds very Catholic, but its approach to the economy goes counter to over a century of Catholic social teaching. The Democratic platform upholds Catholic social teaching, but it also affirms Roe v. Wade.

Faced with this split, Cardinal Dolan, a great admirer of Paul Ryan, did what the Catholic hierarchy has typically done, at least in recent years--he paid little attention to social justice and focused mainly on sex. No wonder Andrew Sullivan, in a blistering op-ed piece, dubbed him "The Republican Party Cardinal."

Enough about the Cardinal. Another Catholic speaker at the Democratic National Convention was much more inspiring. Here's Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a social-justice lobby criticized by the Vatican last spring for spending too much time fighting poverty and too little time fighting abortion and gay marriage. Like Cardinal Dolan, she offered to speak at both conventions. The Republicans did not get back to her.

Scary Nuns Terrify Vatican

Catherine of Siena explains
to Gregory XI why he
should move to Rome

The Vatican has always been scared of forceful nuns. Even (and perhaps especially) the three female doctors of the church made prelates nervous.

In the fourteenth century, Catherine of Siena meddled in papal politics and brought the Avignon pope back to Rome.

In the sixteenth century, Teresa of Avila survived an investigation by the Spanish Inquisition of her mystical writings (and Jewish ancestry). 

In the nineteenth century, Thérèse of Lisieux disregarded the commands of her priest and Vatican officials until the pope gave in and let her do what she wanted.

And yesterday, following a two-year investigation, 80 percent of American nuns came under Vatican fire.

The Washington Post reported that

the Vatican has launched a crackdown on the umbrella group that represents most of America’s 55,000 Catholic nuns, saying that the group was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination. Rome also chided the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for sponsoring conferences that featured “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”
     ... One of the groups singled out in the criticism is Network, a social justice lobby created by Catholic sisters 40 years ago that continues to play a leading role in pushing progressive causes on Capitol Hill.

Interestingly, yesterday's Post also carried a short article by Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the maligned Network. Campbell, writing in honor of Network's 40th anniversary, described the group's activities as

lobbying our elected officials to consider the needs of people living in poverty, the left-out, the marginalized in our society. We have worked on many issues of economic justice, immigration, peace building, health care reform and the environment. We have studied the adverse impact of welfare reform especially in a down economy. We have partnered with Iraqis in helping them to build lives and an economy in post-sanction, post-invasion Iraq. We have partnered with thousands of people around the country in articulating what is the common good that we seek in order to realize the promise of our Constitution.

Even as the Vatican was worrying about the self-sacrificing sisters, yet another priest was placed on administrative leave for sexual misconduct. A third article in yesterday's Post noted that

from 2004 until last year, [this priest] was director of the [Northern Virginia diocese's] Office of Child Protection and Safety, which trains church employees and volunteers to spot abuse and monitors youth activities “to ensure that all contact with young people is appropriate,” its Web site says.

Yes, every organization has its bad apples. But this particular organization, remember, is the one that did not punish Boston's Cardinal Law after his part in that city's sex scandal went public, but rather rewarded him with a cushy appointment in Rome and, last year, a lavish 80th birthday celebration.

As I understand the Gospels, Jesus had a lot in common with the nuns. He identified with the poor and spent a large percentage of his workday on health care. He sent women on apostolic missions (see Jn 4, the woman at the well, and Jn 20, Mary Magdalene in the garden). He protected children. "If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me," he thundered, "it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Mt 18.6).

Apparently Jesus's priorities are very different from the Vatican's.

Want to speak up in a language the Vatican understands? Donate now to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious or to Network.

For further reading: The Vatican's latest crackdown is covered thoroughly and well by Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times and by Joshua J. McElwee in the National Catholic Reporter.

The revised liturgy: medieval words, modern sexism

The bishops have spoken, or at least succumbed. This weekend American Catholics began saying new words at mass. Well, perhaps new is incorrect - the aim of the revised liturgy is to bring back older words that are closer to medieval Latin. In a time when the Catholic church has been rocked by scandals of almost Renaissance proportions, this move is supposed to make American parishioners feel more holy. It is also supposed to bring us in line with European-language liturgies, whose translations are closer to the medieval text.

Yesterday I went to the 10:30 mass at St. Michael's Catholic Community. The Bishop of Joliet, resplendent in purple robes and gold miter, processed medievally down the center aisle behind an honor guard of Knights of Columbus wearing feathery hats. When he greeted us with the customary "The Lord be with you," half of us responded "And also with you" while the other half said, medievally, "And with your spirit." By the end of mass, we had all caught on and were saying the revised words. I didn't feel especially holier. I did, however, feel greater kinship with European Catholics, who rarely attend mass.

Catholics sometimes reproach Protestants for acting as if the Holy Spirit stopped working with the church in the first century, after the New Testament books were written. Tradition, Catholics maintain, is the Spirit's continuing work in the church. Even the Spirit, however, has a bad century now and then, or at least a bad continent. Apparently the words he inspired the Western European church to use in the 11th century were superior to those he inspired the American church to use in the 20th century. So now instead of simple words like one in being and born, we're back to medieval words like consubstantial and incarnate; and instead of affirming our faith as part of the believing community ("We believe in one God ..."), we're back to medieval individualism ("I believe in one God"); and along with with our guilt-ridden medieval ancestors we can strike our breasts and confess that we have sinned "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."

And of course we are just as sexist as ever. More so, in fact. A medieval priest did indeed say "Pray, brothers" (oráte fratres), but not at every mass. More likely those words were spoken to brother priests at  concelebrated masses, not to male and female parishioners at typical parish masses. And the medieval creed did indeed affirm that Christ came down from heaven "for us men" (propter nos homines). Never mind that any 21st-century English-speaker hears that as "for us males," whereas the Latin means "for us humans." Why change good sexist texts that are already close to the Latin words, even if the meanings have completely changed?

Alas, as Fr. Nonomen lamented in Commonweal magazine, "the majority [of parishioners] won’t care. They will dutifully learn all the new responses and musical settings and generally remain unaware of the powerful changes this liturgical language is likely to work on the church their grandchildren will inherit." Or will not inherit, as more and more of us get tired of medievally resplendent bishops making excuses for bad decisions by incompetent men in high places, and quietly drift away.

THIS GORGEOUS GAME by Donna Freitas

As soon as I read Jana Riess's beliefnet interview with Donna Freitas, I put a hold on both young-adult novels at the public library. The Possibilities of Sainthood looked like a sure bet. Riess notes that it "got starred reviews pretty much every place that fiction reviews can be starred: PW, SLJ, Booklist, and even snotty old Kirkus."

This Gorgeous Game, I thought, might not be as good. The topic is much darker - a teen-aged girl is stalked by a priest - and though reviewers were complimentary, they withheld their stars.

Now that I've read both books, I think the reviewers got it backwards.

Catholic Charities and gay spouses--why the religious liberty argument doesn't work

Gay marriage is now legal in the nation's capital, and today Washington's first same-sex weddings took place. When it became obvious that this was going to happen, the welfare agency of Washington's Catholic Archdiocese took action. "Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers," wrote William Wan in the Washington Post last week.

Since then a number of social conservatives have publicly sympathized with Catholic Charities, lamenting the D.C. Council's actions as a blow to religious liberty and suggesting, as one pundit said, that "Catholic Charities had to choose between church teaching and ministering to the city’s neediest residents."

I'm afraid I don't get it.

Catholic Charities USA is a national network of agencies that serves over 8.5 million people a year. Their website describes their beliefs: "We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be." The Washington DC branch of Catholic Charities--the one that is changing its health-care benefits--offers services to the homeless, children at risk, people living with developmental disabilities and mental illness, immigrants and refugees, and people in crisis. According to the DC branch's employment opportunities document, their employees are hired "without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, marital or veteran status, or any other legally protected status."

Let me see if I understand. The Washington DC branch of Catholic Charities is fine with both hiring and serving people who do not live according to Catholic teachings. For example, a gay person can work for Catholic Charities, and the organization is happy to provide support for gay persons in need. But it draws the line at providing health benefits for spouses of its own gay employees--though it provides health benefits for spouses of straight employees who are, say, Muslim or atheist. Is this just? In what way is church teaching compromised by providing health care for people who go against church teachings? Isn't that exactly what Catholic Charities does for the poor?

"Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community."

--The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2428

This might be a religious liberty issue if Catholic Charities believed all its employees should be practicing Catholics in good standing and the city council was telling them they had to hire Hindus and homosexuals. However, Catholic Charities is apparently perfectly willing to hire non-Catholics and gays. How then is their religious liberty infringed by requiring them to give equal benefits to everyone?

No doubt the argument is this: In Catholic theology, gay marriage is not only immoral, it's impossible. Thus their gay employees are actually single, not married, so their benefits should be those of other single employees. Here's the problem with that argument. In Catholic theology, remarriage of a divorced person is also immoral and impossible (unless the divorced person obtains an annulment). Still, I'm willing to bet that there are divorced-and-remarried people among Catholic Charities of Washington DC's 800 employees, and I'm also willing to bet that their spouses are on their health plans.

Ah, but in the case of heterosexual marriage, the church makes a distinction between legal marriage and sacramental marriage, and Catholic Charities probably bases benefits decisions on employees' legal status. Exactly. If they can do it for non-sacramentally married heterosexual couples, they can also do it for non-sacramentally married homosexual couples. In neither case is Catholic Charities being forced to hire these people or to say that their marriages are sacramentally valid, so no abridgement of religious freedom is involved.

What's involved is justice, not religious liberty. Catholic Charities knows a lot about justice. It's time they practiced it with their employees.

Review: Winter in Madrid by C.J. Sansom

Fans of C.J. Sansom's Tudor-era detective Matthew Shardlake may appreciate this 20th-century Spanish interlude, written between Sovereign and Revelation but set some 400 years and 800 miles distant from Henry VIII's London. Or they may wish he'd stuck with the Renaissance series instead of switching to a nearly contemporary thriller about the intersecting lives of three British public school classmates who, improbably, meet again in Franco's Spain--one of them a Communist p.o.w., one an amoral profiteer, and one an increasingly disillusioned traditionalist who only wants to do the right thing.

I liked the book right up to the thrilling denouement, and then I wasn't so sure. Like Shardlake, Harry Brett is an observer in a world gone mad. The principal action takes place in 1940, after Franco's coalition has won the civil war and is attempting to rebuild a flattened country. Ideologues have turned murderous. Factions have split into warring sub-factions. The established church is collaborating with evil. Honesty is not necessarily the best policy, for nothing is as it seems.

Somewhat too-frequent flashbacks give the backstory: class resentments, romance, a war injury. English characters--the three men, a female nurse, various embassy employees--are well developed; Spanish characters less so. Knowing next to nothing about the Spanish Civil War, I found myself consulting old history textbooks and Wikipedia to try to understand the references (this slowed down my reading, but I learned a lot). And once I was up to speed, I was drawn into the story's romance, intrigue, and terror.

Sansom, a professional historian, knows how to bring other times, other places alive. Historical and geographical detail illuminates but does not blind. As I read, I found the same thought going through my mind that haunted me as I read the Tudor books: Something like this could happen here. Bitter antagonism between ideological enemies; willingness to harm others for the sake of political beliefs; powerful deal-makers enriching themselves at the expense of the people they govern--is our fractious society preparing once again for similar horrors?

Near the end of the book, one of the main characters says something striking:

"The people, the ordinary people, it looks like they've lost but one day, one day people won't be manipulated and hounded by bosses and priests and soldiers any more; one day they will free themselves, live with freedom and dignity as people were meant to."

This affirmation of hope jumped off the page, probably because I've just read a forthcoming book by Desmond and Mpho Tutu called Made for Goodness. Confidence like this--in the Tutus' case, bolstered by faith in God--kept Archbishop Tutu going during apartheid. But by book's end, Madrid's confidence seems to run out, replaced by cynicism. That is no reason to avoid the book, however. It's a good read, and very thought provoking. I'd like to know what thoughts it provokes in you.

Pro-choice people: Get a grip

OK, pro-choice people, get a grip.

Yes, the House passed a health-care bill that clearly excludes abortion from public funding. Yes, a spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said, “We think that providing health care is itself a pro-life thing, and we think that, by and large, providing better health coverage to women could reduce abortions. But we don’t make these decisions statistically, and to get to that good we cannot do something seriously evil.”

But really, why would Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, accuse the bishops of “interceding to put their own ideology in the national health care plan”? Isn’t that exactly what Planned Parenthood is trying to do? Isn’t that what everybody tries to do in a democratic republic?

The thing is, as most of us have noticed, America is seriously divided about abortion. The most recent statistics from Pew Research indicate that 46% of us are in favor of legal abortion in all or most cases, 44% are against. You’re more likely to get a hotly debated health bill through Congress if it doesn’t force people who are strongly opposed to something to pay for it. When the Democrats in Congress excluded abortion funding, most of them weren’t making an ideological statement. They were just trying to get the bill to pass.

This bill isn’t the end of civilization as pro-choice people know it. Roe v. Wade wasn’t attacked. If Congress eventually passes a health-reform bill that, like the House bill, excludes abortion payments, there’s no reason pro-choice people can’t fund abortion themselves. It actually wouldn’t cost them all that much.

Look at the statistics: there are approximately 1.21 million abortions a year in the United States at an average cost of less than $500 each. So let’s say that the total cost of providing abortions is $605 million a year.

• Current U.S. population estimate: 308 million
• U.S. population age 18 and over: 231 million
• Adults who favor abortion in all or most circumstances: 106 million
• Annual cost per pro-choice adult to cover all abortions: under $6. Ten cents a week.
  

Personally, I’m glad the House voted in favor of health care and against public funding of abortion—I’m one of those politically liberal, pro-life Catholics. But pro-choicers, if you really want to make abortion easily available and totally free, stop whining and just do it. Really, you won't miss the ten cents. And by going private, you can keep your ideology from sinking the entire national health-care plan.

Catholics, Protestants, the via media, and roadkill

If you have any interest in the Episcopal Church, you've already been exposed to far too many summaries, comments, analyses, predictions, outbursts, and uncharitable remarks about what Bishop N.T. Wright has called "the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism." I am not going to offer an opinion here about what has been done or should be done. Instead, I'd like to point out something very interesting about Archbishop Rowan Williams's official response to the Episcopal General Convention 2009: one of his major concerns is not just holding the Anglican Communion together, but also preserving unity with "the Church Catholic."

In 2006, some three years after Rome suspended ecumenical talks with Canterbury because of Gene Robinson's consecration, Williams met with Benedict XVI. This is part of what the pope said to the archbishop:

Recent developments, especially concerning the ordained ministry and certain moral teachings, have affected not only internal relations within the Anglican Communion but also relations between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church. We believe that these matters, which are presently under discussion within the Anglican Communion, are of vital importance to the preaching of the Gospel in its integrity, and that your current discussions will shape the future of our relations. It is to be hoped that the work of the theological dialogue, which had registered no small degree of agreement on these and other important theological matters, will continue to be taken seriously in your discernment. In these deliberations we accompany you with heartfelt prayer. It is our fervent hope that the Anglican Communion will remain grounded in the Gospels and the Apostolic Tradition which form our common patrimony and are the basis of our common aspiration to work for full visible unity.

Williams appears to share Benedict's wish for "full visible unity." Though several years ago he wrote that "an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might ... reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage," his response to General Convention has quite a different tone. It is not the time, he says, for the Church to bless same-sex unions and thereby change the way it has "consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years." It is not the time for admitting people living in such unions to the ordained ministry. Not enough "painstaking biblical exegesis" has been done. The necessary consensus for so far-reaching a change does not yet exist.

I expected Archbishop Williams to do whatever he could to keep Anglicans under the Canterbury roof. I was surprised, however, at his strong concern for "the Church Catholic," by which he appears to mean not only the Anglican Communion but also the Roman Catholic Church and probably other Anglican ecumenical partners as well. Eight of his 26 paragraphs appeal to ecumenicity:

7. ... it is clear that a positive answer to this question would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also....

8. ... a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole....

9. ... So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle. (There is also an unavoidable difficulty over whether someone belonging to a local church in which practice has been changed in respect of same-sex unions is able to represent the Communion's voice and perspective in, for example, international ecumenical encounters.)

15. ... This again has an ecumenical dimension when a global Christian body is involved in partnerships and discussions with other churches who will quite reasonably want to know who now speaks for the body they are relating to when a controversial local change occurs. The results of our ecumenical discussions are themselves important elements in shaping the theological vision within which we seek to resolve our own difficulties.

18. To accept without challenge the priority of local and pastoral factors in the case either of sexuality or of sacramental practice would be to abandon the possibility of a global consensus among the Anglican churches such as would continue to make sense of the shape and content of most of our ecumenical activity...

19. ... some see this as best expressed in a more federalist and pluralist way. ... But it is not the approach that has generally shaped the self-understanding of our Communion – less than ever in the last half-century, with new organs and instruments for the Communion's communication and governance and new enterprises in ecumenical co-operation.

22. ... there is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a 'covenanted' Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with 'covenanted' provinces.

23. ... perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a 'two-track' model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure. If those who elect this model do not take official roles in the ecumenical interchanges and processes in which the 'covenanted' body participates, this is simply because within these processes there has to be clarity about who has the authority to speak for whom.

Anglicans pride themselves on being neither Catholic nor Protestant, but rather a via media incorporating elements from both traditions. The Episcopal Church in the U.S., by insisting on its own view of truth and justice without general worldwide concurrence and in the face of much opposition, is acting in a very Protestant way. The Archbishop of Canterbury, by appealing to tradition, authority, and consensus, is sounding quite Catholic. And yet, in his genial Anglican way, he doesn't want to banish the Protestant dissenters--"there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness," he writes.

But can the via media persist as a viable ecclesiological model? Or has it already become the median strip where roadkill piles up as traffic rushes past in opposite directions?

Why I am a liberal

Liberal means favoring freedom.

In 17th and early 18th-century Europe, liberals brought down the Ancien Régime—a totalitarian alliance of church and state—and (with many false starts and not a little bloodshed) developed their current democratic systems of government. In America, liberals wrote (and fought for) the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

In England and America, especially, liberals favored free markets and strong businesses. Commerce, they believed, was a safer ruler than king or pope, because commerce was based on “enlightened self-interest.” Economic liberalism led to exploration, the industrial revolution, and an increased standard of living for Europeans and Americans.

However, 19th century captains of industry began rivaling 18th-century despots in their opulent lifestyle, and in turning a blind eye to the miserable living conditions of the workers who supported it. Liberals—that is, lovers of freedom—began arguing that freedom is possible only when everyone has access to education, decent housing, adequate food, reasonable working hours, and a safe working environment.

Today, some Americans think that liberals are anti-business and pro-government. Perhaps some who wear the liberal label are, but this is not true liberalism. I repeat: liberalism means favoring freedom. But this does not mean freedom without limits.

As a Christian, I believe in original sin: we all fall short of God’s ideal. I also believe in community: we are individually members of one another, and our enlightened interests must extend to others as well as ourselves. (That is why I am a liberal and not a libertarian.)

Alas, communities of sinful people are rarely better than the individuals who form them, and often—because of the increased power of the group—they are considerably worse. Think of the powerful medieval church, for example. Christ instituted the church for the good of humankind, but “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton, a devout Catholic, wrote that in a letter about the power of the pope.

If power corrupts the church, it also corrupts secular governments and multinational corporations. America’s founding fathers limited religious power by including the first amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights. They limited the government’s power by dividing it into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. They did not limit the power of multinational corporations, because even though the Dutch East India Company had been founded in 1602, multinationals were not a huge concern in colonial and frontier America.

Paradoxically, excess power, wherever it occurs, needs to be limited in order to allow freedom to flourish. Another name for freedom without limitations is anarchy, and a frequent result of anarchy is totalitarianism. Untrammeled freedom can destroy liberty.

Given humanity’s power-hungry sinfulness, the best way of limiting one power is often by keeping it in balance with other powers. In the Western world today, our princes are not kings or presidents or bishops, but CEOs and financiers. Tomorrow our princes may come from some other sector, requiring different kinds of limits. The important thing for a liberal is not to be anti-business or anti-government or anti-church, but rather to be pro-liberty, and to seek to limit any power that is dangerous to basic human rights.

One thing is certain: as original sinners, we are powerfully attracted to the god Mammon. Whoever has the power also has the money, and whenever power goes out of control, it enriches itself at the expense of others. If you want to know who needs restraining at any given moment, follow the money.

Torture and white Christians

I am distressed by the Pew survey showing that of all religious groups, white evangelicals are most likely to approve of torture and white Catholics are second most likely. Yes, Catholics had the Spanish Inquisition and Puritans had the pillory, stocks, and branding, but I’d hoped we’d gotten past all that. Perhaps the survey results are just one more indication that the doctrine of total depravity is correct.

Fortunately, the survey doesn’t tell the whole story. The post by Mr Neff on CT’s LiveBlog notes that in 2006, Christianity Today magazine ran a cover story called “Five Reasons Torture Is Always Wrong,” and in 2007 a wide range of evangelical leaders signed a document called “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Protecting Human Rights in an Age of Terror.” Many evangelicals are appalled by torture and have been speaking out against it for years.

Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church said in 1997 that "Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity," and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a document in February 2008 that began, "The Church stands firm in denouncing torture as it undermines and debases the dignity of both victims and perpetrators. Pope Benedict XVI said 'the prohibition against torture cannot be contravened under any circumstance.'"

What would the world think of Christians if we stood up for human rights for the poor as well as the rich, for the unborn as well as the born, for the old and sick as well as the young and healthy, for women and children as well as men, for the guilty as well as the innocent, for immigrants as well as citizens, for gays as well as straights, for Muslims as well as Christians, for enemies as well as friends—even when doing so is unpopular among our friends or downright dangerous, and even when we disagree with the people whose rights we are protecting?

Most Christians, thanks be to God, already stand up for human rights in most of those situations. Unfortunately, all of us (being human) find some causes more compatible than others, and all of us have blind spots. Perhaps the Pew survey will challenge us to reexamine our attitudes in those areas where our politics and the views of our friends may be at odds with the teachings of Jesus.

When does an individual human's life begin?

Yesterday the FDA approved Plan B—the morning-after pill—for over-the-counter sales to 17-year-olds (though not until certain labeling changes are made). Web information about Plan B stresses that the method "isn't effective if you're already pregnant, and it won't terminate an existing pregnancy." According to the prescribing information document, it works "principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization.... In addition, it may inhibit implantation."

Does this mean Plan B is an abortifacient? Can there be an abortion without a pregnancy? And when does an individual human's life begin?

Last August Tom Brokaw asked Nancy Pelosi when she believes life begins, and she has been widely criticized for her answer: "I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition."

Pelosi was half right: theologians have indeed differed widely as to the exact time of "ensoulment," that is, when the soul enters the body and the fetus becomes human. Nevertheless, as Michael J. Gorman has shown in Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World, from its earliest days the church has opposed abortion, even though abortion was frequent in the Greco-Roman world. And the Catholic catechism is clear about what the church teaches today: "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception"-- which the church defines as the moment of fertilization.

Conception, however, can mean implantation rather than fertilization, and that is the meaning used by writers of Plan B's ad copy.

After the human egg is fertilized, from eight to eighteen days go by until it completely implants in the uterus and pregnancy begins. According to the definition used by many in the scientific community, until a fertilized egg has implanted in a woman's uterus, she has not conceived and is not pregnant, even if the fertilized egg is in her body. And if she is not pregnant, abortion is not possible. Therefore, it is reasoned, Plan B pills do not cause abortions.

The question remains, of course: does Plan B take human life? Is the fertilized egg a human person before pregnancy occurs? This is a question of faith, not science. For Christians who believe that human personhood begins with fertilization, Plan B is morally wrong. Other Christians, who also consider themselves pro-life and anti-abortion, argue that human personhood begins with implantation; for them, Plan B may be morally neutral.

As one who has favored the first group, let me give a few arguments on behalf of the second. In some ways, implantation may be a better model than fertilization of when embodied life--the union of dust and spirit--begins.

First, human beings are more than genetic codes: we require community and nourishment in order to live. Implantation brings the developing cells into community with their mother and provides them with food and hormones and everything else they need.

Second, each human being is a unique and unrepeatable individual. Until implantation is achieved, the developing cells may split into twins or triplets. Individuality is not assured until the cells attach to the uterus.

Third, fertilization can occur in a laboratory, but--so far, at least--no baby will result unless at some point implantation occurs.

And yet the fertilized egg has its very own DNA, and perhaps this is reason enough to consider it fully human. To some, though, that sounds rather disembodied. Does a cell with a DNA code have infinite value, the same as cells that have burrowed into their mother's womb and established a relationship with her that she feels in every part of her body? Is human nature based in a code or in a relationship?

These are important questions with implications not only for the morning-after pill, but also for assisted conception and embryonic stem-cell research. The answers to these questions are not as clear as some of us would like. They can't be found in the Bible or in scientific journals, though both sources contribute to our understanding of the issues involved. Christians of good faith disagree. As human beings who thrive in community, we need to keep our voices down and listen to others, as we would have others speak softly and listen to us.

Fish tostadas, a political discussion, and a nursery rhyme

Here is what the Neffs ate tonight. The bottom layer, which does not show, is a homemade corn tortilla. Next comes a handful of wild arugula ($1.99 for 8 oz. at TJ). On top of that, 1/2 of each of three bell peppers (red, yellow, green) sliced and cooked in olive oil with a sliced onion. Next, six TJ fish sticks. After that, a hearty handful of grated feta cheese. On top, a mixture of diced tomato, avocado, and lime juice.

Here is what the Neffs talked about while eating. Mr Neff was interested in this article by Helen Alvaré, the Catholic church's poster girl for intelligent non-feminism. She is concerned that some initiatives by some governments seem aimed at forcing, or at least strongly nudging, mothers out of the home and into the workplace, and she writes approvingly of governmental programs that subsidize homemakers.

All very high-minded, said Mrs Neff to Mr Neff, but an odd situation has developed over the last hundred or two years. Once upon a time, if the man was an agricultural worker, so was his wife. If he was a servant, she probably was also. If he was in the leisure classes, she had servants waiting on her too.

But since the industrial revolution, there is often a social-class divide between husband and wife. While he is off, say, editing a magazine and running a department, she is at home, say, cooking fish tacos and doing the income taxes.

In such a hypothetical situation, Mrs Neff persisted, the man is part of the upper-middle-class intelligentsia, and the woman is his servant. Perhaps some of the governmental initiatives that worry Ms Alvaré are simply trying to move the man and woman toward parity.

But no, Mr Neff countered:

The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.

When you were working on taxes, quoth he, you weren't doing a servant's job. You were doing the work of a king!

Never argue with Father Goose.

Refreshment Sunday

Today, the fourth Sunday in Lent, is Laetare Sunday in the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, though probably not many of us notice. (Laetare is the first word of the introit for the day: "Rejoice, O Jerusalem!") In the UK, it's Mothering Sunday, and sometimes it's called Refreshment Sunday. Hey, it's halftime. Those onerous Lenten restrictions can be relaxed for the day. Take off that hair shirt! Eat some chocolate! Spend wildly on food!

The Neffs are going to take a whole Refreshment Week. We're going west to visit our descendants and celebrate our 41st anniversary, and we're going to pay no attention to our food bill. Well, knowing us, we'll notice. But it will all be off-record. The Lenten Experiment returns one week from today.

Meanwhile, a progress report. For the first 25 days of Lent, we have spent $241.92 on groceries. That's a per diem of $4.84 apiece. In addition, Mr Neff has had several business lunches and a couple of restaurant meals when he was out of town; his company paid, so that somewhat lowered our food bill. We have each bought ourselves one lunch out: Mr Neff's was frugal. We have had meals with friends several times, sometimes at their place and sometimes at ours.

Most of our food has been vegetarian, though not vegan. We've had fish several times and chicken once or twice. I've put sausage in the soup. We've drunk a little wine, but not much and mostly when visiting friends. I've baked a lot of bread.

And now I'm going downstairs to warm up the lentil soup, chop some cilantro, slice some bread, and pour some wine. Laetare!

Dissolution

This morning I finished reading Dissolution,and author C.J. Sansom is now high in my pantheon of mystery writers. You suspect a book is going to be good when it's blurbed by P.D. James and Colin Dexter--and this is only Sansom's debut novel.

The strongly characterized, intricately plotted, fast-paced story is set in 1537, the year England's Henry VIII moved against the larger monasteries. The king's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, sends hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake to investigate a murder at the Monastery of St. Donatus in the fictional Scarnsea. Shardlake's mission is not only to discover who killed the previous royal emissary, but also to unearth other unsavory goings-on that could justify closing the monastery.

He unearths plenty, and on both sides of the church-state conflict.

No doubt one reason I like this book is because its cynicism is general--Catholics and Reformers are equally corrupt. I like the flawed but decent protagonist who makes serious mistakes but retains his essential honesty. I like the author's knowledge of and attention to historical detail (he has a PhD in history and has practiced law). I like Sansom's skillful, unobtrusive writing style. Mostly, I enjoyed the story.

Fans of Candace Robb's Owen Archer or Margaret Frazer's Dame Frevisse (or Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael or Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma) are bound to enjoy Sansom's Matthew Shardlake, even if he lives in the decades that finished off the Middle Ages. The cast of characters still includes a king and councillors, an abbot, a prior, and dozens of monastics. The setting still features monasteries, serving girls, horses, and of course rumors of war between England and France.

Sansom's second book in this series, Dark Fire, won the 2005 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, and he has added two more titles to the series since then. According to a November 2007 article in The Guardian, the BBC plans a TV adaptation of Dissolution starring Kenneth Branagh.

Saint Patrick de l'Irlande

Tomorrow we are going to a St. Patrick's Day dinner of French and Italian food.

This makes perfect sense: tradition has it that the saint's grandmother was from la Touraine, the region made famous a millennium later by its chateaux; that Patrick studied for several years on a Mediterranean island near present-day Cannes; that he assisted the bishop of Auxerre in what would become Burgundy wine country; and that he once visited the Tuscan Pope Leo the Great in Rome (though it's possible that some of these legends confuse Patrick with Palladius, a Gaulois who also became a bishop in Ireland in the fifth century).

In honor of l'évangélisateur gaulois de l'Irlande, I am bringing two loaves of home-baked French bread to our fête patricienne. I recommend Mark Bittman's recipe, which I won't post because you really need to go out and buy his book tomorrow, or you could click on the link below and just do it.

But first, enjoy this article from the Telegraph: "French Still Like Their Daily Bread Fresh."


Oh yes, I almost forgot. Would you believe we had leftovers again tonight? The cabbage/beet/orange salad. The black bean stew, this time with some turkey sausage added to the rest of the emoluments. And the Brussels sprouts. Everything is now used up. Let the St. Patrick's Day feast begin!

Doubt: what happened in the rectory

I think I know what happened behind the scenes in Doubt.

I know, I know. It's not supposed to matter: this is a film about doubt, for Pete's sake. It "isn’t about certainty, but ambiguity, that no man’s land between right and wrong, black and white" (Manohla Dargis, the New York Times); it's "not primarily a movie about a hot button topic but rather ... a comment on the potential futility in trying to impose moral clarity and unambiguous order on the murk of human motives and behavior" (Ray Greene, boxoffice.com).

Still, most of us don't leave the cinema debating the limits of moral clarity. We want to know what really happened in the rectory, and we wonder what Sister Aloysius doubted in the last scene. And because there seems to be no way of finding out, some of us feel just a tiny bit cheated. Richard Alleva, writing in Commonweal magazine, comments:

Ambiguity in drama and literature has had good press throughout the last century, and rightly so. If a novel, play, or movie is to reflect the depth and multifariousness of life, it’s bound to introduce uncertainties into plot and characterizations. But there is ambiguity and then there is ambiguity. There is the sort that points toward the underlying mysteries of existence, and there is the kind that results from the writer withholding basic information.

... You won’t be able to make up your mind about the priest, but that is simply because Shanley withholds decisive information about him, not because of richly layered characterization. What transpired in the rectory remains unseen and unknown.... The movie aims to instill doubt in the viewer and succeeds in doing so. But is Doubt’s doubt a truly disturbing emotion communicated by a probing work of art, or is it just the uncertainty we have to feel whenever we don’t have the facts of a case?

I agree with critics who liked the film because it shines a light on "the murk of human motives and behavior." I appreciate that it is not a mystery but a parable (the stage version is subtitled "A Parable"), and like all parables it reverses our expectations and leaves us with more questions than answers. Still, lover of whodunits that I am, I'm not satisfied to leave it undecided. Like Richard Alleva, I want to know what happened.

And now I think I do.

Warning: If you haven't seen Doubt yet, you'd better stop reading right now. You can always come back to this page later.

What Father did

Did Father Flynn molest Donald, or did he merely offer the boy friendship and protection? Throughout the first half of the film, we assume Donald is isolated because he is the first African-American student in this Irish-Italian school. Then we learn from his mother that the boy has suffered in school and at home because he is gay ("that way" is how she describes his orientation).

The filmmaker seems to be telling us that Father Flynn is also gay. There are the references to his impeccably groomed long fingernails, the pressed flowers in his missal, his joke about his not getting any girls to dance with him. I think Flynn looks at Donald and sees his younger, hurting self. I think he loves the boy and wants to protect him.

What goes on in the rectory? Maybe Flynn abused Donald. It's an easy conclusion to jump to, given the thousands of cases of priestly pedophilia uncovered over the last 50 years. But do Donald's reactions seem consistent with abuse? Does Donald's mother think the priest is harming her son? Would Father Flynn embrace the boy openly right after being accused of molesting him? Is Sister James's faith in Father Flynn just another sign of her naïveté? And why is there no evidence whatsoever that abuse has occurred?

Consider this possible alternate scenario: Flynn hears the boy's confession, whether sacramentally or casually made. He probably reassures Donald that it's OK to be gay. Maybe he encourages him in his stated wish to become a priest. He may even tell Donald that he himself is gay, promising to be there when he needs him.

Whatever happened between them, Donald has entrusted the priest with what, to this set of classmates, is still his secret. And Flynn is not about to betray Donald by telling Sister Aloysius what the boy said.

Once Sister goes on the warpath, Father Flynn is afraid. Not because she's right about his relationship with Donald, but because he doesn't want to lose his job yet another time. After all, there's some reason he didn't stay long at his previous parish assignments. Maybe his gay orientation became known. Maybe he was more outspoken about changes needed in the Church than his superiors wanted him to be. Maybe he knows that Roman hierarchs seem unable to distinguish between homosexuality and pedophilia and fears that Sister's charges will mean the end of, not only his job, but his vocation.

Flynn is afraid. He has secrets. But this does not mean he is guilty as charged.

Why Sister doubts

Viewers are puzzled not only about the priest's actions but also about Sister Aloysius's doubts. Why does this strong-willed woman suddenly confess to doubting? What are her doubts about?

Some think she is doubting Father Flynn's guilt. If so, this is a sudden, inexplicable shift that occurs mid-paragraph as she talks with Sister James, and there's no artistic or psychological reason for it.

Some think she is doubting God. Maybe, but God plays a very minor role in this drama.

I think the script is clear: from start to finish, Sister is utterly certain of the priest's guilt. She is simply not given to existential angst. What Sister doubts is not his guilt but the Church--which, in Roman Catholic terms, means the hierarchy.

Remember when she chides Sister James for tackling problems on her own when she should be referring them to the principal? Everyone reports to someone higher, she explains. The system is there; use it.

But by the end of the film, Sister Aloysius knows that the system is broken. She can't go to Father with her problems: he is the problem, or so she believes. She won't talk with the priest in his former parish, because she doesn't trust him to tell the truth. She eventually does go to Flynn's boss, the monsignor, but he predictably protects the priest. And when the bishop eventually moves Father Flynn to a different position, it is to a larger parish that also has a school.

Enough doubt to go around

Doubt was set in the last two months of 1964. Three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi that year. China detonated its first atomic bomb. The Vietnam war was escalating. Massive protests broke out at U.C. Berkeley. Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for opposing Apartheid. Bob Dylan's protest songs were gaining a large audience. And the second Vatican council was in full swing, turning the Catholic church into something its older members barely recognized. Director John Patrick Shanley could not have chosen a more appropriate time for his parable.

I wish Meryl Streep, who is one of my favorite actors, had chosen to play Sister Aloysius with more restraint. Perhaps I'm willing to exonerate Father Flynn simply because Philip Seymour Hoffman played him with such subtlety and compassion. Sister A, by contrast, was a laughable caricature, when she could have been portrayed as a strong woman fighting for justice. This is a woman who, with only an inadequate, poorly trained staff, ran an inner-city elementary school whose graduates went on to good high schools. This is a woman who had the guts to stand up to the establishment on behalf of a gay black student. This is a woman who suspected child abuse decades before it would become the cause célèbre of journalists and lawyers.

Yes, I think she was mistaken. But she wasn't crazy.

Please advise us on our Lenten plans

The good news: I'm old enough now that not even the Catholic church requires me to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (scroll to Canon 1252).

But I want to do something meaningful for Lent, and I'd like it to be more significant than just giving up something (sugar? wine? whining?) or adding something (daily Mass? optimistic blog posts?).

So here's my idea. I think I'd like to try limiting our food budget to the amount we'd get if we got the maximum amount of food stamps in Illinois. For a family of two, that would be $323 a month, or about $74 a week.

Mr Neff suggests that we be more generous and allow ourselves the amount the USDA thinks is sufficient for a couple aged 51 - 70. The most recent figures (November 2008) suggest $79.80. So say we split the difference and make it $77 a week, or $11 a day.

This would cover home-cooked food only--no other grocery store purchases like detergent, no restaurant meals, no alcoholic beverages. Which is not to say we couldn't buy those things, though it would seem like cheating to say we were getting by on $75 - $80 a week if we were actually eating half of our meals downtown.

So, how hard could this be? Well, that means maybe $1.25 for breakfast, $1.25 for lunch, and $3.00 for dinner for each of us. Lots of dried beans, onions, potatoes. Not a whole lot of goat cheese and arugula.

Do we want to do this? If we do, will our diet be balanced and our meals tasty? Can we invite friends over? Would you consider doing it with us? (Then we could get together for amazing potlucks...)